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Food experience is gaining importance in the increase of sustainable competitiveness of tourism businesses, hence the importance of food consumption measurement in the context of recent gastronomic trends. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is not any appropriate scale to measure food consumption in the context of recent gastronomic trends. This study aims to fill this gap by developing and validating a scale that tends to measure tourists’ food preferences.

This is an explorative study with its unique construction and methodological approach. More specifically, scale development procedures were followed through reviewing the literature and gathering the opinions of 20 experts, and then the primary data were collected through the survey applied to 248 foreign visitors to Turkey. Finally, the subsequent survey was applied to 628 foreign visitors to Turkey for the sake of validity.

This study reveals a scale and validates it. The scale development and validation processes resulted in a three-factor model with 14 items to assess food consumption tendencies: modernist cuisine tendencies, fusion cuisine tendencies and local cuisine tendencies.

This study contributes to the relevant knowledge accumulation by developing and validating a scale measuring food consumption tendencies within the frame of recent gastronomic trends. The authors hope to broaden understanding and utilization of the tendencies and trends by both stakeholders in the tourism industry and academic circles.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first food consumption scale development and validation attempts within the frame of recent gastronomic trends. Considering this, it is hoped that the outcomes are unique and lead academia and practitioners in further research.

An in‐depth analysis of hospitality certification programmes was conducted. The study revealed important insights on certification demographics, development processes, certification paths, administration, benefits of certification, credibility and the future of certification programmes. It is found that developing certification programmes commonly involves a long and detailed process. There are serious obstacles in getting association membership to adopt certification programmes. Associations prefer to develop, and manage their certification programmes. Certification programmes seem to benefit both associations and members.

This study was conducted to examine hotel and holiday village general managers’ (GMs’) turnover and to identify root causes of GM turnover. GMs who were serving five‐star hotels and first‐class holiday villages operating mainly in coastal sides of Turkey (mostly the Aegean coast and the Mediterranean coast) were researched. GMs in 144 hotels and holiday villages were faxed a one‐page survey instrument developed by the researcher. At the end of two rounds, out of 144 GMs, 56 responded to the instrument. Analyzing the data, it is found that GMs are quitting hotels after 3.3 years on average, and hotels tended to change GMs every 2.5 years. The main causes of GM turnover are: management conflict and problems between property owners and GMs; and GMs’ career moves.

Identifies the basic competencies of research chefs. A modified, three‐round (pilot round plus two rounds) Delphi procedure was employed. The Research Chefs Association nominated 33 research chefs. Ten of these chefs contributed to the pilot round; 25 to the first round; and 22 to the second round. In the pilot round, the chefs identified the knowledge, skills and abilities that a successful research chef should have. In the first round, the chefs rated and analyzed the competencies identified in the pilot round. In the second round, competencies were identified. The title “research chef” is actually a generic name for two different kinds of research chef: “research‐focused research chef” or “management‐focused research chef”. Even though these chefs share some common competencies, they differ in their basic competencies. A total of 12 basic competencies (competencies rated four and over on the five‐point Likert scale) were identified for research‐focused research chefs, and eight basic competencies were identified for management‐focused research chefs. A total of 19 basic competencies were also identified that applied to both research‐ and management‐focused research chefs.