Foodie Tourist Behavior

Abstract

With the dominance of individual tourism mobility, there have been changes in tourist motivation and interest in gastronomic tourism. There are advances in the variety of tours, such as culinary tours, gastronomy tours, festival tours, gourmet tours, cooking course tours that foodie tourists may prefer. Foodie tourists are divided into many subgroups according to their eating and drinking preferences, but in general they are interested in organic, natural products, and they like to taste ethnic or local foods. Foodie tourists want to learn about the traditions and customs of food culture, such as ”what time the food is eaten, with whom, table manners, eating habits, which food and drink is compatible with food and drink”. Foodies may prefer local, organic, and sustainable products also they adopt slow food habits. They engage in fishing and farm work in addition to sustainable agriculture. Authenticity is the decisive element in their restaurant preferences and local food are seen as major tourist attraction centers. Authenticity positively affects their destination selection. On the 220other hand in their holidays, foodie tourists may both seek for familiar tastes for eating and drinking and may also be willing to try different tastes from their own familiar tastes. Entomophagous foodies are included in second group. They like eating edible insect species but few people prefer to eat insects. Some foodie tourists are simply fond of coffee, wine, or any famous drink and are motivated to travel just to try it. Foodies consume luxurious foods and they tend to pay higher prices during their travels. Especially they spend more money on their travels to abroad. Gastronomy festivals are other attraction element for foodies. They can socialize in these festivals as well as eating different foods. According to their digitalization choices, they can share the photo of their best foods. Most of them use social media actively and share what they eat and destination’s local foods. Foodie tourists’ destination choices and consumption habits are valuable source for development of gastronomy tourism. This chapter aims to detail different typologies related to foodie tourists. It is supposed to contribute to the body of literature both theoretically and practically on tourism sector, professional tourist guides and variety of tourism products in the sector.