Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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Introduction
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,
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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.
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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 house
