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The purpose of this study is to explore the factors affecting locals’ domestic gastronomic behaviour. A conceptual framework is developed that examines domestic restaurant coolness, social return and tourism ethnocentrism as antecedents to attitude towards domestic gastronomic tourism, while positive word-of-mouth and domestic gastronomy behaviour are modelled as consequences.

The study adopts a quantitative methodology to conduct a cross-national examination in Italy and Fiji. A total of 621 responses (Italy = 302 and Fiji = 319) were collected through an online survey and analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

The results of this study show that the positive relationship between domestic restaurant coolness and tourism ethnocentrism on attitude is stronger for Italy. The positive relationship between social return and attitude is only significant for Fiji. Moreover, the positive relationship between attitude towards domestic gastronomic tourism and positive word-of-mouth is stronger for Fiji. Finally, the positive relationship between attitude towards domestic gastronomic tourism and domestic gastronomic tourism behaviour, while significant in both countries, depicted no significant differences in results.

The findings of this study highlight the need for building a cool image based on vibrant, iconic, rebellious and authentic attributes. Marketers need to focus on local restaurants’ effective use of social media platforms to increase the symbolic value of local restaurants. To remain competitive, there is a need for domestic restaurants to manage and understand tourism ethnocentrism to leverage success.

This study contributes to the scarce domestic tourism literature. It contributes to understanding destination coolness in the context of domestic restaurants and increases the generalisability of the destination coolness scale. The study also adds to understanding the symbolic value in domestic gastronomy by examining social returns from peers. It also contributes to the limited research on tourism ethnocentrism by being the first to investigate tourism ethnocentrism in domestic travel and gastronomy experience. Overall, the cross-national nature of the study demonstrates the difference between decision-making behaviour between two distinct countries.

This study explores the brand management and marketing of Creative Cities of Gastronomy. A framework based on brand experience was constructed to investigate its relationship with tourists' brand attachment and brand identification. Two factors that enable tourists to have a stronger brand experience from the self-concept perspective – self-congruity and self-expansion – were also examined.

The authors adopted a quantitative research design and collected data from participants who had visited Creative Cities of Gastronomy. A total of 515 valid questionnaires were collected online and offline. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis and hypothesis testing.

The results showed that brand experience positively affects brand identification and attachment. The brand experience of tourists who considered themselves to be “foodies” was enhanced in the Creative Cities of Gastronomy through self-congruity. The results also confirmed that the relationship between self-congruity and brand experience is mediated by self-expansion.

Studies on the Creative Cities of Gastronomy are limited. The few that have explored these cities are dominated by qualitative approaches. This study applied empirical data to examine the brand experience in Creative Cities of Gastronomy. The authors successfully verified that brand experience is effective for building positive relationships with brand attachment and identification. The study also confirmed that self-congruity and self-expansion are important antecedents of brand experience in Creative Cities of Gastronomy. This study enriches the literature by providing empirical evidence and insights into the marketing and branding of these cities.

Gastronomy can be a key destination choice factor. As tourists, people will be able to learn more about the culture of the place through its culinary assets. This paper aims to analyse the interest and the gastronomic motivations of tourists to the city of Granada (Spain), where two important UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) are included.

To achieve the aim of this study, fieldwork was carried out on a representative sample of tourists in Granada (Spain). Specifically, a total of 1,612 valid surveys were filled out in culinary establishments and historical sites. In these surveys, the opinion of tourists regarding gastronomy and their motivations when travelling was assessed.

The results of this research allow to make a segmentation of tourists into three groups according to their position and their interest in gastronomy based on their destination choice, distinguishing among survivors, enjoyers and experiencers’ tourists. Additionally, it is confirmed that gastronomy is shaped as a motivation that influences the level of tourist satisfaction, performing as a differentiating element that can help increase the competitiveness of the destination.

This research contributes to the scarce academic literature on tourism experiences in a city with WHS recognitions. This study confirms the existence of a relationship between gastronomic motivations and the level of satisfaction achieved by tourists who visit the city of Granada, where no similar studies were found. In addition, this work confirms the connection between gastronomy and culture.

Food not only satisfies the need and nourishes positive experiences but also enhances involvement with the cultural, social and environmental attributes of a destination. As urban tourism is embracing sustainable consumption practices (SCP), this study aims to explore tourist’s responsible behaviour by embracing traditional gastronomic delicacies. More specifically, it pinpoints the driving forces behind why people choose traditional gastronomic delights.

The study adopted the triangulation method involving the grounded theory approach (GTA) attained through a series of focus group discussions followed by the survey method taking an emerging economy’s perspective (India and Bangladesh). This study accords equal importance to both the demand and supply perspectives of gastronomic tourism and its stakeholders.

Critical dimensions such as travel motivation, tourist expectations, socio-economic perspectives, mindful consumption, sustainable marketing efforts and community awareness were identified as major influencers towards traditional gastronomic delicacies.

The present study bears significance to the urban developers, policymakers, marketers, regional tourism bodies and tour operators in promoting urban gastronomic cultures through marketing traditional delicacies for sustainable development of the evolving gastronomic industry in India and Bangladesh.

This study makes a novel attempt in exploring critical dimensions in an evolving gastronomic industry by blending an innovative qualitative research methodology like GTA supported by the empirical validation process (quantitative). It proposes a theoretical framework for further advancement of gastronomic and urban tourism towards a SCP.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role that food and beverage (F&B) sensory stimuli play in building non-food-themed touristic experiences, such as wellness tourism experiences.

This paper adopts an asynchronous netnographic approach supported by software (T-Lab, 2021). The study was conducted on a database consisting of 3,141 reviews in English, left by customers of 38 wellness facilities (Spa Retreats) spread across 5 continents.

The analysis reveals that F&B stimuli contribute significantly to the tourist's perception of the wellness experience in a two-fold manner: on the one hand, they support the wellness experience, and on the other, through specific proposals (e.g. wine, vegan, detox, etc.), they qualify and differentiate the wellness experience in a hedonic rather than eudaimonic way.

The present study contributes to managerial literature on the topic of gastronomic tourism and wellness tourism by providing, on an international scale, empirical evidence of (a) the importance and role of F&B touchpoints in hybrid gastronomic experiences; and (b) the presence of a variety of “wellness experiencescapes”.

This study is the first attempt to measure the role of F&B in tourists' perceptions of non-food-themed experiences. The research not only provides new data on the wellness experience through a cross-continental analysis but also offers useful theoretical and managerial insights for the design of wellness tourism experiences.

The goal of this study is to understand if ethnocentrism exists at the sub-regional level among honey consumers living in the same production area as a protected designation of origin (PDO). Moreover, this analysis explores if ethnocentrism is influenced by individual economic conditions, among other socio-demographic characteristics.

A sample of 725 consumers was collected through the use of a questionnaire that was circulated in the province of Varese, one of the few honey PDO areas in Italy. The authors performed a principal component analysis and a two-step cluster analysis to identify different PDO honey consumer segments, focusing on their interest for PDO attributes.

The authors identified four consumer segments, depending on socio-demographic, consumption habits, frequencies, preferred attributes and preferences for the PDO product. One cluster exhibited strong preferences for the PDO honey, in the spirit of ethnocentrism, and was characterised by low-income levels; ethnocentric preferences were also observed in another cluster that had a different socio-economic profile.

Honey is a niche product and not universally diffused among consumers: further analyses should investigate sub-national ethnocentrism for more universal food products. Yet, through the inspection of the different profiles found, it was possible to devise marketing strategies to boost PDO honey purchasing and to bring consumers closer to PDO products.

This analysis considers ethnocentrism as a segmentation criterion for PDO honey consumers that live in the very same PDO honey production area and enriches the existing literature on the relationship between ethnocentrism and individual economic status.

This paper aims to explore the relationships among local food consumption experience, cultural competence, eudaimonia, and behavioral intention. Building upon acculturation theory, need hierarchy theory and self-determination theory, the current study develops a conceptual model of local food consumption as international tourists’ acculturation process.

This study collects data from 305 Chinese outbound tourists and uses partial least squares-structural equation modeling to examine the developed model.

The findings reveal a significant effect of the local food consumption experience, consisting of novel, authentic, sensory and social dimensions, on cultural competence, which subsequently evokes eudaimonia and behavioral response toward local food. The mediating effect of cultural competence is also confirmed.

Destination marketers and restaurant managers should recognize local food consumption as a meaningful tool that contributes to tourists’ cultural competence and eudaimonic well-being during travel. They should strive to craft an indigenous consumption setting and provide employee training on the history and culture of local food, helping tourists understand local food customs and embrace different food cultures.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, very few studies have attempted to examine the meaningful consequences of local food consumption through the theoretical lens of acculturation. This study dives into international tourists’ local food consumption and pioneers a conceptual model to capture how local food consumption experience provokes their eudaimonia and behavioral desires through the mechanism of cultural competence.

This research aims to examine Generation Z's perspectives of sustainable consumption in food tourism experiences, considering the drivers on food tourists' behavioural intents and basing its analysis on the value-attitude-behaviour model of norm activation theory.

Using a qualitative design, 27 qualitative online surveys were conducted with Generation Z travellers who are also active on social media.

Results show that while they are aware of environmental knowledge and ethical food choices and think that sustainable food consumption improves individual and social wellbeing, the sustainability of food consumption is limited by factors such as time and budget. Also, results reveal that the eating habits of Generation Z people are more sustainable when they eat at home than when they travel. Theoretical and practical implications for food tourism management and marketing are described.

While food tourism has been largely investigated in recent years, little previous research has focused on the relationships between daily eating behaviours and sustainable consumption in food tourism experiences, especially from the perspective of Generation Z individuals and the influence of social media on individual and social food decisions.

The aim of this paper is to study attitudes and perception of Slovak consumers toward healthy food in terms of consumption, as well as to identify key factors during the purchasing process.

An online questionnaire survey was conducted using snowball sampling method in Slovakia (n = 1,138 respondents) between March and May 2021. By applying categorical principal component analysis, five latent factors were identified. Moreover, non-parametric tests (Chi-square test for independence, Kruskal–Wallis H test) were carried out to study differences between age cohorts.

Results showed that Slovak consumers mostly perceived as very healthy the following food categories: fruit, vegetables, honey, juices made of fruit and vegetables, fish meat or cereals, nuts and seeds. Moreover, research has identified five latent factors, which consumers mostly consider during purchase of healthy food as follows: price-marketing factor, information and composition factor, authenticity factor, quality factor and factor of motivation.

Research paper gives an important insight about consumer behavior and perception toward healthy food in Slovakia. Results provide valuable information for producers in terms of marketing and communication strategies. In addition, provided information can be used by policymakers for improving food policy to foster public health in the society.