Abstract
As demand for temple food has significantly grown, this study’s objective was to conduct a market segmentation analysis of temple food consumer motives in order to develop effective marketing strategies. The study identified six motives specific to Korean temple food consumption representing “health-oriented,” “ethical vegetarianism,” “meditative mindfulness,” “educational experience,” “taste,” and “environment protection.” Motives were then used to generate four distinct temple food groups named Highly Motivated, Vegetarian, Environment-Oriented and Minimally Motivated. This study provided useful information for the application of Korean temple food marketing strategies for destinations featuring this growing trend in culinary tourism.
Highlights
Religion continues to be an important travel motive for undertaking journeys, as over 300 million tourists are reported to make pilgrimages to religious destinations every year [1]
Theoretical Implications This study identified consumers’ motives for eating Korean temple food in order to classify those temple food consumers into distinct segments
The study’s analyses successfully identified six motives associated with eating Korean temple food, representing dimensions named “health-oriented,” “ethical vegetarianism,” “meditative mindfulness,” “educational experience,” “taste” and “environment protection.”
Summary
Religion continues to be an important travel motive for undertaking journeys, as over 300 million tourists are reported to make pilgrimages to religious destinations every year [1]. As the tourism industry explores opportunities for developing precise consumer travel segments [3], religiously conscious tourists are still considered to be an unexplored part of the Korean temple food customer segment. 900-centuries-old traditional Korean Buddhist temples exist, located atop majestic mountains where hundreds of indigenous plant species flourish [5]. Using these natural, seasonally available plant varieties over the past sixteen centuries for ingredients, Buddhist monks and nuns have developed unique and diverse temple foods and cooking methods [6]
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