Food and Drink Tourism: Classification, Destination Choices, and Triple Bottom Line

FOOD AND DRINK
TOURISM

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Contents
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................... 1
Classification of food and drink tourists............................................................................ 1
Ways in which food and tourism acts as an important factor is making destination choices.............2
Measurement of “Triple bottom line” in gauging success, failure and sustainability......................4
Food festival contribute to Triple Bottom line.....................................................................5
Conclusion................................................................................................................ 6
REFERENCES........................................................................................................... 7

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INTRODUCTION
Tourism industry is on the growth in different parts of the world. There are many reasons for
this increase. The major idea lies in the fact that there are different types of tourism but at the
same time there are classifications under these types as well. The reason for travel and
tourism is the increase in the interest of the people in exploring new things. It is seen that
people from different parts of the world are highly curious to know about the other cultures
and other cultural aspects as well such as food and drinks (Boniface, 2017). However,
sustainability has become one of the essential aspects in the modern day tourism and has
become one of the major reasons for the success of the Tourism firms in the long term. It has
also become critical that in the type of competition that is present in the industry is forcing
the firms to make their services in such a manner that it is able to attract people with different
choices. This report classifies and discusses Food and Drink tourism. It also discusses
significant factors that lead to destination choice of travellers. Measurement of Tripple
Bottom line which helps measuring success, failure and sustainability has been provided
along with the way in which food festival contribute to the triple bottom line.
Classification of food and drink tourists
There are different types of food and drink tourists which will provide different kinds of
opportunities to the companies that aim to enhance their business. Some of the types of the
food and drink tourists are:
 Gastronomy tourists: These are the tourists that go for tourism purpose because they
want to visit food producers, food festivals, restaurants, visiting specific types of
places so as to taste the special kinds of foods and drinks, as well as for watching the
special chefs etc. There are people that are highly attracted towards eating special
kinds of food that is either made by some famous producers or the ones that are
famous about any place or event (Everett, 2011).
 Culinary tourists: These are the travellers or tourists that travel to certain place just to
take the experience of certain food taste. Their purpose is fix i.e. they only go to
certain place just to take the taste of certain special kinds of food (Hjalager and
Johansen, 2013).
 Heritage tourists: There are certain tourists that aim to know about the heritage and
the food that are famous there. Since at different heritage sites there is some special

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kind of food available and there are people that go to these places just to taste this
special kind of food at the heritage sites. Most of the times these are foods that are
associated with the cultural history which can be experienced and due to this some of
the tourists travel to different places (Hall and Gössling, 2013).
 Foodways tourists: There are some tourists that go to another part of the world or
tourist places just to think about the region’s “foodways”. These people are curious
about the ways in which people in that part of the world or in that region eats
something. It is basically related to knowing about the food culture that can give very
different kinds of experience to the travellers about eating habits and the types of food
that is taken by them (Haven‐Tang and Jones, 2012).
 Cultural tourists: These are also the type of food and drink tourists that aim to know
about the culture that is present in specific country or region. These cultural tourisms
also do it for curiosity purpose. Since every culture has a very different set of taste for
instance the Indian culture has food that is highly rich in spices. This will be different
for the people from the western culture and due to this they travel to India for
understand the culture of food in that country (Shalini and Duggal, 2015).
 Gourmet tourists: These tourists are the part of the niche industry where people travel
for cultural ideals linked with culinary art of food and drink, or haute cuisine that is
characterised by refined, even elaborate preparation and manufacturing of
aesthetically balanced meals of different contrasting mostly courses that are quite rich
(Hall and Gössling, 2016). Since the ingredients that are used in the food are very
much unique, rare and only subject to availability in that region and are impacted by
the religious customs and local state hence it attracts people that wants to have these
foods.
Ways in which food and tourism acts as an important factor is making destination
choices
There are different factors that affect the choices of people about any place or destination.
The beauty of that place and the knowledge that it provides to the people plays a critical role
in the success of the organisation. In this regards the role of people’s feelings and choices
also matters. For instance, if the traveller is student then there is more likely a choice that he
will prefer to go for educational or research purpose to any part of the world. Food and drinks
are becoming another major factor that is attracting people to any destination (Yeoman, I.,