Influence of Food to Tourism

Gastronomy appears an essential element in the desire of knowing the culture, destination and lifestyle of the diverse category of people. Therefore, it embodies all aspects of traditional values that are driven by recent trends in tourism like the respect for other people’s culture and tradition, the nature of the lifestyle sustainability, authenticity and experience. This key striking role in gastronomy in choosing the travel destinations has evoked the resultant impacts to it which include improvement of the quality of the local products and the evolvement of a new market for food tourism. Based on the evidence from interviews with the tourists and food manufacturers, this report intends to look to the influence of food on tourist’s travel motivation to Hong Kong.

Gastronomic tourism is the main topic of discussion, using the case of Hong Kong. The results of this study give evidences and goes ahead to provide recommendations to the study of the gastronomy as far as food and tourism is concerned. CHAPTER ONE 1. 0 Introduction Recently, the number of people willing to spend more money and time on travelling is growing continuously, as travelling allows them to escape from their daily routine. In 2015, it was reported by The United Nations World Travel Organization [UNWTO] (2016) that there are 632 million international leisure travelers. People do not just travel for relaxation, they are looking for more exotic experiences, learning opportunities and cultural interaction. Gastronomy tourism ought to be defined in terms of eating and drinking behaviors or experiences of the tourists during their trips (Smith & Xiao, 2008); further explanation will be discussed below.

Food consumption in tourism is a topic being highlighted to study in recent years due to its rising significance.  Research acknowledges the great potential of gastronomy, and the growth in this sector is closely observed (Rand et al. According to Quan and Wang, tourists are spending more than one-third of their expenditure on food, hinting that food is a significant element which can affect the quality and experience of tourists during trips. It also recognizes the gastronomy tourism as growing, tourists are seeking for more localized and cultural experiences which could be embodied by gastronomy (Londono, 2015). Hence, gastronomy tourism should be a form of tourism, in which travelers want to gain remarkable culinary experiences to enhance their whole trips by seeking and tasting local food(Horng& Tsai, 2012).

Moreover, the exploration, experience, and enjoyment of the unique gastronomy of a destination is the fundamental aim of the food tourists (Wolf, 2004). This idea is reinforced by Ignatov and Smith (2006), they defined gastronomy tourism as when a traveler most significant motivation during the trip is to purchase or consume regional foods and beverages, or to observe and study about production and culture of the local cuisines. Santich (2004) explains gastronomy tourism as the participation in another culture aroused by the interest in food and drink. To be more specific, food tourists travel to a destination primarily for the visit of food exhibitions, food festivals, restaurants and specific locations for food tasting and experiencing (Hall & Mitchell, 2000). Hong Kong is frequently visited by international visitors, and its popularity as a destination can be proved by ranking 9th on earning the most international tourism receipts in 2015 (UNWTO, 2016).

Hong Kong is only a small region but it is able to compete for the positions with all big states. Among the fifteen factors that can attract travelers to Hong Kong, it is revealed that cuisine is the second most important factor that pulls travelers to the destination (Enright & Newton, 2005). Seeing the potential, the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) actively develops marketing strategies to promote Hong Kong as a culinary destination. For example, the HKTB website offers a “Dim Sum Guide” as to promote Hong Kong style cuisine to the tourists. Hence, this study has two purposes: (1) to identify the elements or aspects of Hong Kong cuisines that affect international tourists’ travel motivation to Hong Kong, and the level of influence of different aspect; (2) whether the marketing information on Hong Kong cuisines is well-received by the tourists, and through what channels the gastronomic tourists look for information of Hong Kong as a culinary destination.

To conclude, this study analyzes how Hong Kong is performing as a gastronomic destination. Literature Review Eating and drinking are the basic physiological needs for human for daily life, which means it is essential even when people are travelling. Apart from this physiological need, eating and drinking are also linked with other levels of human needs that can become motivations for travelling with respect to gastronomy tourism. There are several travel motivation theories that can explain the behavior of travelers. Two more psychological needs – social and esteem needs are built on top of the basic needs. For social needs, individuals want to build relationship and socialize with families, friends and loved ones, and they want the sense of affiliation which they feel like belonging to groups (Seeley, 1988).

Next is the esteem needs, which is basically the fulfilment of one’s prestige and feeling of accomplishment; this include self-respect and respect from others (Stephens, 2000). Self-respect is internal feelings like achievement and independence, whereas external respect is the long of reputation and recognition. The top level of self-actualization is often referred to the “growth need”, that people want to realize their own goals and maximize their capabilities. Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Pearce (1993) developed a travel motivation theory which is the Travel Career Ladder [TCL]; it also separates the motivations of tourists into five difference levels. Similar to Maslow, Pearce orders the needs of travelers into a “ladder”, the levels are relaxation, safety/security, relationship, self-esteem and development, and lastly self-actualization from bottom to the highest accordingly.

Unlike Maslow’s theory, it is important to note that in TCL, tourists usually do not travel only to satisfy one specific need, instead they might have multiple purposes in one trip. Nevertheless, it is proposed that one of the needs in the ladder may be the primary goal. The term “career” in this model implies that people will systematically make progress with their travel motivation, with the majority of travelers climbing the TCL and some staying at a particular level. For example, people having troubles in real life such as interpersonal relationship conflicts may wish to escape from the routine everyday environment; while there are travelers who always want to learn more about different cultures, which is similar to food tourists wanting to understand a region’s culture through consuming local gourmets.

From the above, it can be concluded that there are numerous types of motivations, including can be classified as two major factors: extrinsic (affecting by external forces) and intrinsic (psychology within the person). These can then be subcategorized into physical, psychological (e. g. , cognitive, affective, conative) and spiritual aspects. People are also enjoying things like total relaxation and new foods that cannot be fulfilled in daily life. This is induced from Maslow’s physical needs and TCL’s relaxation needs. Cultural motivators are strong push factors in gastronomy tourism; it highlights the culture experience through experiencing new local cuisines. The tourists want to learn and explore more during the holidays. It is a similar idea to Iso-Ahola’s seeking tourists. They do not prefer foreign foods, except those of similar tastes but in different styles in their everyday life.

The existential gastronomy tourists have a more revolutionary mind. They learn through exploring different food combinations and eating experiences. They are learning about the local cuisine and the destination’s culture. They gain the knowledge through actively participating in activities such as visiting and harvesting in farms and participating in cooking classes. Other scholars also try to identify the food tourists in different categories. For example, based on the Canadian Travel Activities and Motivations Study, Ignatov and Smith (2006) divided the culinary tourism market into three major segments, including food tourists, wine tourists, and food and wine tourists. Similar situation can possibly be applied to Hong Kong as these are also the features of Hong Kong’s food tourism. The WFTA (2017) in another hand tries to classify the food tourists into even more detailed categories, such as adventure, authentic, budget, social, trendy and many more.

The categorization is based on the main concern that the food tourists considered when they choose the food destination, restaurants of dinning activities. Food Tourism or Culinary Tourism can be said to be the kind of tourism that has contributed widely to travelers motivation and behaviour to have a unique experience with food and beverage (Kesici, 2012, p. 34) According to the research conducted in member states of European Union, food tourism has a serious contribution towards the economics of the state with more enterprises and employment added value. Gastronomy tourism can be seen as travelling to other regions to experience “unique, different and unforgettable” gastronomic assets peculiar to that new region. Currently, most countries with unique local gastronomy culture are able to develop and promote their regions with the purpose of economic impacts for regional development instruments and to protect and sustain local culture and meet demands of today’s tourist.

Recently, local gastronomy is one of the most crucial worth for activities aimed at tourism. Quality food and drink in a region improve tourism products and tourist’s experiences in the region. Food is important in enhancing sustainable tourism. Such importance takes various shapes. Basically, tourist’s consumption of local foods of a region makes much impact on the region. In this way, profit is realized in the local economy. This is achieved through activity of tourists in acquiring destination experience through gastronomy. Cultural motivation of a type of motivation where food motivates a tourist to travel. Based on motivation through culture, local products play role in providing gastronomic experience. E very tourist is always proud and eager to tell the experiences achieved throughout the tour(Guzman & Canizares,2011).

This is classified as prestige motivation. In addition to this,tourists may also be directly involved in agricultural activities. That is for the case of agro-tourism. Food tourism as a tool for Tour place Marketing Given that the “gastronomy” as an element of destination attraction and culture, gastronomy is a very powerful tool ranked first in the traveler’s expectations on the tour destination (Selwood, 2003). Food tourism or gastronomy is not only the only an attraction element but also a tool of various cultural products. It promotes an interesting destination travelling. A region’s food has important effects on choices of region and tourist experience having in that region. Some people travel to taste new cuisine cultures (McKercher et al. , 2008, p.

Shenoy (2005) stated that all regions and destinations tried to create products of their own in order to differentiate from their competitors in a world tourism market, where the competition had been increasing day by day, and the local culinary was a unique source as a marketing instrument. Developing countries should bear in mind that the gastronomy has an important place in the development of a country and in marketing strategies. Moreover, food can change the regions (China, Mexica, France, Italy etc) because cuisines help to have relation between the type of food and touristic places. The consumption of local foods can contribute to somecomponents about maintainability of this region. These components are participating and supporting the production of food and the agricultural activities, obstructing the authentic exploitation, being increased the attractiveness of touristic places, getting a stronger society, constituting vanity source, and having a stronger label (Telfer& Wall, 1996).

Henderson (2009, p. 109) stated that food is the most crucial factor to improve the image of destination of food and beverages for tourists to constitute the general experience about destination. These components are participating and supporting the production of food and the agricultural activities, obstructing the authentic exploitation, being increased the attractiveness of touristic places, getting a stronger society, constituting vanity source, and having a stronger label (Telfer& Wall, 1996). In many investigations, it is emphasized that local cuisine is important for maintainable tourism for destination (Sims, 2009). Even seeing strategic level, politic and regional progresses are related to local cuisine (Boyne & Hall, 2004). The cultural cuisine which is an important factor for tourism, has a big potential for marketing destinations and assisting the power of competition (Rand & Heat, 2004, p.

It is seen that gastronomic tourism provides the progress of agricultural and pastoral places and produce local food with the experience which tourists get from food (Quan& Wang, 2003).   Apart from that, Chicken is another favourite Chinese meals.   While the chicken is cut into parts, every single piece is served including the gizzards and head.   In a Chinese meal, every individual is provided with a bowl of rice while the supplementary dishes are served up in shared plates or bowls.   As eating behaviour of a society and it’s culture has a relation with life style, changing life will lead to change in culture and eating behaviour. In this case,there is difference every country’s cuisine culture show (Durlu-Ozkaya, 2009, p. Therefore, during this process Turkish cuisine gained the feature of fusion cuisine.

For this reason, Turkish cuisine is one of the living oldest and best cuisines in the world (Akgöl, 2012; Bilgin&Samancı; 2008, Hatipoğlu, 2008). Every nation has cuisine culture in respect of cultural stucture. Turkish cuisine is one of the most gorgeous and colorful cuisines in the world. This richness arises from Turkish Nation created the oldest communinty in the world (Dereli, 1989, p. Gastronomy tourism also will achieve its objectives with sustainable gastronomy (eco-gastronomy). Additionally, gastronomy tourism can be performed in all seasons. Apart from that, gastronomy tourism is a factor of balance in the geographical deployment of tourism. Gastronomy tourism can be integrated in many kinds of tourism. Recreational activities in gastronomy tourism are quite divers and exclusive to the region.

1 Sampling This empirical study selects Hong Kong as the research location. Hong Kong is granted a renowned reputation as the world’s famous food paradise (PartnerNet, 2017). There are rich diversity of cuisines ranging from local, regional to international. International tourists are often attracted by the food in Hong Kong. Thus, Hong Kong is a suitable location for surveying the influence of marketing information on food to travel motivation. Dependent variables are the level of tendency to visit Hong Kong and factors affecting travel motivation.   To measure all the variables, both literature and quantitative analysis will be applied. A questionnaire will be distributed to Asia travelers and Western travelers separately. The questionnaire is separated into 5 parts. The first is to screen the respondents, second is to understand the preference towards Hong Kong food and beverage among the tourists, third is to understand the channels that the travelers used for when looking for information on Hong Kong’s cuisines, fourth is about the travel motivation and factor affecting the motivation among the two groups, and lastly the demographic information of respondents.

These reveal the level of how respondents are attracted by Hong Kong from few or no experience to generating the travelling desire, which aligns with the concept of Guttman scale. After that, the detailed investigation on travel motivation which derived from “pull” factors are listed. The examples are “to experience the local culture” and “to taste the historical local food”. Since the relationship between gastronomy and travel motivation has been proved in the literature review, the travelers’ indication can reflect their reasons of stimulating their travel motivation, based on the allure of local food. Besides, the influence of “push” factors is also investigated among all travelers, such as time constraint, economic condition, and health concern. Regarding the selection of data collection sites, data collected will be in areas that are famous of food, such as MongKok (local food) and Central (high-end restaurants) because it could be predicted that there is relatively high visitor flow that composes of food tourists.

Interviewees will be conducted on street and outside the restaurants respectively. Both paper questionnaires and tablets are prepared for this data collection. E-questionnaires on tablet are the main source whereas paper questionnaires are the backup in case there are technical issues of tablets. Furthermore, face-to-face, interviewer-completed surveys are adopted. Annals of Tourism Research, 8(2), 189–219. Du Rand G. E. , Heath, E. , &Alberts, N. Hjalager, A. M. What do tourists eat and why? Towards a sociology of gastronomy and tourism. Tourism (Zagreb), 52(2), 195-201. Hjalager, A. C. & Plant, R. V. Marketing for tourism. Singapore: Pitman.  Retrieved from http://www. intrepidtravel. com Ignatov, E. , & Smith, S. Segmenting Canadian culinary tourists. Kivela, J. , &Crotts, J. C. Tourism and gastronomy: Gastronomy’s influence on how tourists experience a destination.

Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 30(3), 354-377. (2001) Food, place and identity: Consuming Australia’s ‘beef capital’. Journal of Sociology, 37(3), 239–255. Long, L. Culinary tourism. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press. R.  and Ritchie, J. R.  Tourism: Principles, practices, philosophies, 7th.  New York: John Wiley & Sons. Ontario Ministry of Tourism. Culinary Tourism in Ontario: Strategy and Action Plan 2005–2015. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Tourism. PartnerNet. Quality tourism services scheme. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Quan, S. & Wang, N. Towards a structural model of the tourist experience: An illustration from food experiences in tourism. Tourism Management, 25(3), 297-305. S. The implications of Maslow’s theory of motivation for consumer behavior: A hierarchical consumption theory. UMI Dissertation Services. Smith, S. L. C. (Ed. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.