What is food tourism

Tourism is experiencing rapid growth. According to Jane Chang of Chang Brothers Travel in Singapore, when she was interviewed in March 2014,5 the growth in food tourism has been 30% a year for the last decade with food tours to China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Turkey being the most popular. In Singapore itself a one billion Singapore dollar fund was announced in 2012 to develop tourism, including food tourism, and Prime Minister Lee added part of the secret was ‘High Touch’ and ‘High Tech’ business development in the sector.6 Ten years ago the Food Tourism Association was formed, which now goes under the name of the World Food Travel Association (WFTA; www. worldfoodtravel.org). The WFTA is based in Portland, Oregon and its aim is to develop and promote food tourism internationally. Their definition of food tourism is where we should start our journey: ‘The pursuit and enjoyment of unique and memorable food and drink experiences, both far and near.’ Food tourism has been gaining momentum over the last decade around the world for two main reasons. First, a desire for people to discover where their food comes from and second to discover new foods and food preparations. The challenge is where does food tourism start and finish. How many of the existing activities carried out on the farm are tourism activities in the view of the traveller? A visit to a farmers’ market is often cited as a tourist activity, whereas a visit to the supermarket in the past, to purchase the same product, was not classified as a tourist activity. Having said that we now have the ‘Waitrose Effect’. This is where a specific food retailer, such as Waitrose in the UK, has such a highly desirable brand reputation that houseprices around the store increase as it is such a desirable place to shop. This influence was reported by the BBC News in the UK.7 Research by Savills, the estate agents (www.savills.co.uk), indicates that house prices in areas where there is a Waitrose store are typically 25% higher than the UK average. In London, there is a 50% premium in Waitrose postcodes. The Daily Mail Online8 newspaper in the UK reported: ‘It’s Christmas glee for Waitrose, but Sainsbury’s suffer – shoppers flood to upmarket chain to buy Heston endorsed products.’ The article went on to explain that TV celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal endorsed a range of products in store and sales in the lead up to Christmas 2013 increased by 4.1% against a Sainsbury’s growth of 0.2%. This meant that 22,000 products a minute were sold by Waitrose on 23 December 2013, highlighting the influence celebrity chefs have on food retailing and food tourism in the UK. In Austin, Texas, the Wholefoods store at The Domain fits into our definition of food tourism. It has an outdoor beer and bratwurst bar, is a venue for live music, has a Texas Ramen bar (sushi-style individual dishes), 11 different seating areas, an indoor oyster bar, a community meeting place and has local artists’ paintings and artwork displayed around the store. It is increasingly clear that the gap between tourism and retailing as we understood it is blending and that food tourism could now include the weekly food shop. Farmers are also joining in on the new developments. In Chicago, Illinois, located next to Dunkin Donuts on North Clark Street, you will find the Farmer’s Fridge: a vending machine developed by Luke Saunders selling healthy organic food from the farm in recyclable jars (www.farmersfridge.com). These developments are all based around food attracting visitors to a certain area. Whether they should be included in a book on food tourism we are sure will cause debate. The authors’ approach has been to set the net wide Fig. 1.1. ‘Never Shop on an Empty Stomach’ in Bath Spa, UK.