Abstract
Purpose This study aims to discuss Slow Food Tourism (SFT) as an ethical paradigm and important tourism microdriver to address sustainability and climate change. Its key principles are based on slow, sustainable, secure and democratic processes for SFT. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on published research to identify ethical parameters for a slow food paradigm for tourism. Findings Within the context of a global, technological and rapidly changing world, SFT is a pathway to contribute to locally based agricultural and food practices for sustainable development, food security, social sustainability and community well-being. SFT visitors are active participants in ecological, cultural and heritage conservation through co-creating with local producers the sociability, enjoyment and sharing of bioregional foods in diverse ethnic and cultural spaces. Originality/value This research advocates that SFT is an important microtrend that supports a much-needed paradigm shift toward a conscious way of slow living, sustainable travel and responsible food production–consumption to help address the climate crisis and global environmental challenges in the Anthropocene.
Highlights
Food tourism at destinations continues to attract increasing numbers of visitors
Eight out of ten visitors are influenced by culinary attractions when choosing a destination, and food and gastronomy accounting for 40 per cent of the world’s tourism expenditure (Europa Press, 2019)
Destinations worldwide face an existential threat from climate change and deteriorating environmental sustainability – sobering realities of “progress” in late modernity being measured by economic “growth” driven by industrial production and high speed competition in globalized capital markets
Summary
Food tourism at destinations continues to attract increasing numbers of visitors. Eight out of ten visitors are influenced by culinary attractions when choosing a destination, and food and gastronomy accounting for 40 per cent of the world’s tourism expenditure (Europa Press, 2019). It is associated with a humanistic principle of pleasure that contributes to happiness and well-being (Dunlap, 2012; Hall and Sharples, 2003) and celebrates cultural and culinary heritages (Miele and Murdoch, 2002) It is in play in all forms of slow experiences that offer bioregional food experiences to residents and visitors (urban and rural), which are convivial and rooted in the local “terroir.” For instance, SFT can be seen to take place within homestay programs, small-scale ecotourism and farm visits, farmers markets, street food experiences and small-scale food enterprises. A niche specialty product such as cheese produced by small rural producers (Fuste -Forne , 2015) offers such a slow, holistic gastronomical opportunity to enjoy cheese tasting, explore the rural landscape and contribute to sustainable livelihoods and social well-being It enables visitors along with the residents to be active rather than passive consumers, to engage in sociality, dialogue, storytelling and cultural exchange with local providers. Slow food tourists recognize the need to shift from unsustainable industrial agriculture and its neoliberal capitalist ethic to a healthier, more conscious way of living and caring for the ecological systems and spaces that sustain the planet’s inhabitants (human and non-human)
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