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Local food consumption values and attitude formation: the moderating effect of food neophilia and neophobia

Khalil Hussain (Department of Management Sciences, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan)
Amir Zaib Abbasi (IRC for Finance and Digital Economy, KFUPM Business School, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia)
S. Mostafa Rasoolimanesh (Centre for Research and Innovation in Tourism (CRiT), Taylor's University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia)
Carsten D. Schultz (Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, University of Hagen, Hagen, Germany)
Ding Hooi Ting (Department of Management and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, Malaysia)
Faizan Ali (Muma College of Business, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA)

Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights

ISSN: 2514-9792

Article publication date: 13 January 2022

Issue publication date: 6 April 2023

2189

Abstract

Purpose

The local food tourism in Pakistan is increasing rapidly, and it attracts scholars to determine the factors affecting local food tourists' buying choices. Particularly, the authors aim to investigate the role of food consumption values on predicting domestic tourists' attitude toward local food and its effect on the intention to try local food with the moderating effect of personality traits (neophobia and neophilia).

Design/methodology/approach

The authors tested the study model on 250 completed responses from local food tourists. They collected the data from three tourism locations (Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar) in Pakistan. Their study utilizes the consumption value theory within the limits of Pakistan's local food tourism.

Findings

The empirical findings show that consumption values, such as price, emotion, interaction, epistemic value, location value and variety value, effectively explain the domestic tourists' attitude toward local food. The authors further report that food neophilia strengthens the local tourists' positive reception toward the local food. However, food neophobia weakens the direction between local tourists' attitude toward local food and the intention to try local food.

Practical implications

This study provides insights pertaining to tourists' local food consumption values (LFCVs) to a local destination owner and marketing manager to strategically work on LFCVs that are crucial for domestic tourists to derive their intention to try local food. Practitioners should work on domestic tourists who possess food neophobia trait and enquire them for their rejection or avoidance of a particular local destination. This will enable practitioners to bring innovation and development in the local destination, which ultimately promote local food tourism.

Originality/value

This study is the first to incorporate the variety and local value in tourists' LFCVs to predict local tourists' attitude toward local food. Additionally, the authors contribute to local food tourism by empirically studying the moderating role of personality traits (food neophilia and food neophobia) to examine the direction between local tourists' attitude and intention to local food.

Keywords

Citation

Hussain, K., Abbasi, A.Z., Rasoolimanesh, S.M., Schultz, C.D., Ting, D.H. and Ali, F. (2023), "Local food consumption values and attitude formation: the moderating effect of food neophilia and neophobia", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 464-491. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTI-08-2021-0214

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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