2.1 Gastronomy

Gastronomy began to develop as a distinct sector of the broader tourism industry in the 1990s and remains an ongoing field of study and practice. As an intentional practice, gastronomy enhances our capacity to derive pleasure from eating and to connect with the regions, the people, and the cultures from which our meals are sourced. Gastronomic knowledge derives from an educated appreciation of food and of the sensual pleasures it provides. The pleasures of gastronomy include the social bonds that are formed when dining together, also known as commensality. The term gastronomy was officially adopted into the French language in 1835. The primary goals of gastronomy involve the pursuit of sensory pleasures, intellectual stimulation, cultural engagement, and social well-being through the act of eating. Gastronomy, in other words, engages both the body and the mind in what remains an inherently social experience. The physical and social pleasures of gastronomy are intertwined with and enhanced by knowledge of food and its importance to a given culture, its historical origins, the nuances of its flavors, the method of its preparation, and the context of its consumption, each of which plays a part in its cultural heritage. Western gastronomy, or the art of eating, first developed as a field in 19^th-century France. Not surprisingly, the founding fathers of food criticism and of gastronomic tourism were French. Even though food criticism was inaugurated in 1803 and the first modern gastronomic tourists traveled by automobile in the 1920s, gastronomy would not be officially designated as a unique sector of the tourist industry until the 21st century.

Whereas China has influenced the cuisines of other Asian cultures for millennia, France began to lead the West as a culinary beacon in the late 18th century. Beginning in the 1990s, the French tourist industry began to consciously connect its identity as a gastronomic region with its cultural heritage. Additional European nations followed suit more broadly, and the sector’s expansion has continued apace.

Although figures are widely variable, one report released in 2024 estimates the gastronomic tourism industry generated 11.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2023 (Grand View Research, 2024). Since 2010 increasing interest in food and drink as a reason to travel or as an important role in tourist itineraries has led to the rise of local gastronomy tours, food festivals, cooking classes, food trails, and place-branding through local food and drink. In turn, place-branding has transformed some destinations into what folklorist Pauline Adema describes as a foodscape. In her study Garlic Capital of the World: Gilroy, Garlic, and the Making of a Festive Foodscape, Adema explains: “When the association between a place and a food item is abstracted, highlighted, and promoted, the communal landscape becomes a foodscape” (2009, p. 4). Like France did in the 1990s, other nations, cities, regions, and rural areas have begun creating foodscapes to draw visitors, providing pleasurable educational experiences and crafting unique gastronomic identities for themselves. The World Tourism Organization (WTO) defines gastronomic tourism as

based on a concept of knowing and learning, eating, tasting and enjoying the gastronomic culture that is identified with a territory. It is not possible to talk of gastronomic tourism without also talking about the culinary identity of the terroir as a distinguishing feature. The territory is the backbone of gastronomy because a destination’s landscapes, culture, products, techniques and dishes define its culinary identity. (WTO & Basque Culinary Center, 2019, pp. 8–9)

Whereas the territory defines the gastronomic destination, determining what grows well in a given region, gastronomic tourists who travel to experience a region’s foodscape tend to value “experiences that stress learning, creativity and mastery, aesthetic appreciation, and cultural authenticity and celebration” (Getz & Robinson, 2019, p. 150). In turn the notion of terroir encapsulates the relationship between land and the edible products that it nurtures—whether it be fruit, vegetable, fungi, a free-range bird, or a grazing animal and its milk. The term terroir was first developed in France to designate the taste of place embodied in wine. The terroir of an edible product includes the soil, topography, climate, and biodiversity contained in the select portion of land on which it is grown, all of which influences its flavor and taste. It also includes the cultural practices that determine the flavor profile of a regional product. For example, the taste of Roquefort cheese is imparted by Penicillium roqueforti, which thrives in the caves where the cheese is aged. The term terroir has been adopted by many food growers and has come to represent the unique place-based flavors that characterize a region and its food products.

Regardless of where travelers journey, food and drink sit firmly in the realm of hospitality. Dining itself involves a complex web of social, cultural, and economic practices and constitutes a form of symbolic communication and sensory engagement, one in which a culture’s culinary traditions are literally consumed by the diner. In turn the study of gastronomic tourism as an industry has led to the development of two main modes of investigation—namely, those that analyze marketing and management and those that analyze culture and sociology. Although in-depth studies such as Adema’s interweave both approaches, those focused solely on marketing and management explore the motivations that drive tourists to seek out local food, drink, and food products. This focus also measures tourist satisfaction in relation to a destination’s gastronomic identity and culinary offerings. Cultural and sociological research, in contrast, focuses on gastronomy as a means of learning about a society, its culture, its cultural identity, and its history (Dixit, 2019b).

As gastronomic tourism has developed into a unique sector, it has expanded beyond providing services to the traveler to curating experiences, a trend that has permeated tourism more broadly. The gastronomic sector, in particular, has come to be defined as

an experiential trip to a gastronomic region, for recreational or entertainment purposes, which includes visits to primary and secondary producers of food, gastronomic festivals, food fairs, events, farmers’ markets, cooking shows and demonstrations, tastings of quality food products, or any tourism activity related to food. (Dixit summarizing Hall and Sharples, 2019a, p. 13).

More broadly, gastronomy improves destination appeal and educates tourists about a location’s cultural heritage, helping to draw visitors and improving their experience. It also strengthens a community’s or region’s identity and stimulates tourist spending in other sectors. Gastronomy can serve as a tourist attraction, as a part of the tourist product, as an experience, and as a cultural phenomenon. It also “helps to promote sustainable tourism through preserving valuable cultural heritage, empowering and nurturing pride amongst communities, and enhancing intercultural understanding” (Dixit, 2019a, p. 15). A region’s agriculture and culture are intertwined with its gastronomy. Tourism, in turn, provides the infrastructure and services needed to package gastronomy as a travel product or experience.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of mass tourism and the desire for more sustainable and culturally engaged travel had spurred travelers to begin seeking unique destinations and activities. During the pandemic, travelers actively sought off-the-beaten path, sparsely populated areas to vacation or to work “from home.” After pandemic restrictions were lifted, communities, cities, regions, and nations began to seek the return of tourists and also aimed to meet travelers’ increasing desire for sustainable, culturally engaged, and educational experiences. Because of its ability to showcase the cultural heritage of a place and to connect visitors with locals, gastronomic tourism has become one of the fastest-rising sectors of the tourist industry. The deliberate creation or enhancement of a region’s identity through gastronomy has enabled many cities and regions to emerge from the economic downtown caused by the pandemic. As Adema explains, the intentional transformation of a city or designated region into a “foodscape is often one strategy of place making employed to generate a collective place-specific identity or a sense of place. By differentiating a city [region, or community] from others, image makers intend not only to boost pride among locals but to attract visitors—i.e., economic capital—to the locale” (2009, p. 8). This tactic has helped many areas recuperate after the pandemic, revitalizing national, regional, and local economies.

Attributions

1. Figure 2.2: The World’s Longest Lunch 2015, by Tourism Victoria, is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
2. Figure 2.3: Types of Food Tourism, by Hannah Adams for WA Open ProfTech (© SBCTC), is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
3. Figure 2.4: Pays bleu de Roquefort, by MicheL Dicaire, is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.