Marketing Gastronomic Tourism Experiences as Luxury

Abstract

Luxury has received attention from tourism researchers as an important element of the gastronomic tourism experience. With recent research suggesting food and wine tourism being connected to luxury, it is important to explore how gastronomic tourism experiences are marketed to create such perceptions and feelings of luxury. This chapter aims to understand marketing strategies that support luxury gastronomic tourism experiences. In contrast to the definition of luxury as a performance or a value, this research conceptualises luxury as an affect which is sensed and felt in gastronomic tourism experiences. How this conceptualisation translates into marketing practice is explored for a particular gastronomic region. An in-depth analysis of the website of a destination marketing organisation in the Hunter Valley gastronomic region of Australia shows that the gastronomic tourism experience is marketed as bucolic luxury using marketing strategies of connection, congregation and repetition, all of which channel and maintain the affect of bucolic luxury. The chapter contributes to the literature on luxury marketing in the tourism context by identifying marketing strategies that can augment the affect of luxury for the gastronomy tourist.

Citation

Roy, N. and Gretzel, U. (2022), "Marketing Gastronomic Tourism Experiences as Luxury", Kotur, A.S. and Dixit, S.K. (Ed.) The Emerald Handbook of Luxury Management for Hospitality and Tourism, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 183-197. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-900-020211009