Understanding How Gastronomy Behaviours Influence the Repatronage Intention of Malaysian Muslim Tourists’ toward Japanese Street Food Vendors

Tengku Sharifeleani Ratul Maknu,Hasman Abdul Manan,Shahira Ariffin,Wan Nur Izzatie

doi:10.17687/jeb.0802.06

Abstract

The paper investigates the influences of gastronomy behaviours on the repatronage intention (RI) of Malaysian Muslim tourists toward Japanese street food vendors. The present literature review showcased multiple studies on street food vendors at various destinations. Despite this fact, there is a lack of information concerning Malaysian Muslim travellers and Japanese street food vendors. Notably, Malaysian Muslims love to travel to Japan due to its visa-free travel, the availability of various Muslim-friendly facilities, and its delicious street food. Street food is described as ready-to-eat food or drinks sold by hawkers or vendors in streets or any other public spaces (such as markets, fairs, or carnivals) for immediate consumption, including finger food and fast food. In general, people buy street foods because of factors such as convenience, reasonably-priced flavourful food, samples of ethnic cuisines, and nostalgia. Most importantly, street food reflects the local culture and appeals to many palates. Nowadays, savouring authentic local dishes of certain places has become a tourism trend. Moreover, statistics showed that millions of tourists have decided to revisit familiar locations to enjoy their local gastronomic culture. In fact, gastronomy is among the main factors that affect tourists’ destination choices. Based on current literature, this study theorised that gastronomy attractiveness (GA) and past gastronomy experience (GE) indirectly affects the repatronage intention (RI) through gastronomy satisfaction (GS). Furthermore, gastronomy knowledge (GK) and gastronomy motivation (GM) are direct predictors of RI. In this study, the analysed data showed significant relationships between GA, GE, and RI through GS and between GM and RI. However, GK and RI had an insignificant relationship.

Highlights

For over 1400 years, Japan is warmly known as the land of the rising sun or “Nihon” in the Japanese language
This phenomenon confirmed the study by Kivela and Crotts (2006), where they posited that gastronomy greatly influenced tourists’ experience at a destination, where a majority of them would return to savour its unique gastronomic experience again
Findings from the regression weight proved that Gastronomy Attractiveness (GA), Gastronomy Experience (GE), Gastronomy Motivation (GM), and gastronomy satisfaction (GS) explain the repatronage intention (RI)

Summary

Introduction

For over 1400 years, Japan is warmly known as the land of the rising sun or “Nihon” in the Japanese language. Street food is defined as ready-to-eat food or drink sold by hawkers or vendors in streets or other public spaces (such as markets, fairs, or carnivals) for immediate consumption (“Street Food,” 2018) Street food such as Yaki-Imo, Saba Noodles, Okonomiyaki, Mochi, Takoyaki, Crepes, and various others are abundant and readily available all over Japan. Statistics showed that millions of tourists decided to revisit familiar locations to enjoy their local gastronomic culture (UNWTO, 2012, as cited in Quee-Ling et al, 2017). This phenomenon confirmed the study by Kivela and Crotts (2006), where they posited that gastronomy greatly influenced tourists’ experience at a destination, where a majority of them would return to savour its unique gastronomic experience again. This paper aims to fill the gap and investigate the influences of gastronomy behaviours on the repatronage intention of Malaysian Muslim tourists toward Japanese street food vendors

Literature Review

Methodology of Study

Result

Conclusion and Discussion

Findings

Methods and Research