Analysis of the Tourism Demand for Iberian Ham Routes in Andalusia (Southern Spain): Tourist Profile

Abstract

: Iberian/serrano ham is a food product with a long tradition in the Spanish diet that is increasingly demanded by national and international consumers. Spain has 5 protected designations of origin (PDO) and two protected geographical indications (PGI) that support the quality of this product, which is manufactured only in the Iberian Peninsula. Since 2013, and based on the culinary product of ham, public entities and some businessmen have been trying to promote tourism related to ham, similar to wine-based tourism. In this study, we attempt to understand the profile of a ham tourist in the three existing routes in Andalusia, as well as ham tourism’s potential demand through seasonal auto-regressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) models. The results show that the profile of a ham tourist is similar to that of other typologies such as a tourist of wine or oil, and the demand has slow growth due to the novelty of this new tourism offering. Thus, there is a need to design strategies that allow the development of ham tourism, which will lead to an increase of wealth via employment in the local community.

La relación de los productos agroalimentarios de calidad diferenciada con el turismo en España y Portugal

“…A medida que la población mundial y la demanda de productos y servicios han ido creciendo de forma acelerada, se ha asentado a escala global una conciencia colectiva sobre la importancia de aplicar los criterios de sostenibilidad a todas las actividades económicas y, especialmente, a todas aquellas que se desarrollan en las zonas rurales (Cava et al, 2019).…”

“…Como resultado de la potencialidad turística de los espacios rurales, se han diseñado estrategias cuya finalidad ha sido la captación de mayores flujos de demanda. La ideada para promocionar el desarrollo del potencial endógeno de los espacios rurales ha consistido en combinar un proceso de identificación regional con la creación de marcas o identificaciones para la promoción interna y externa de la región (Cava et al, 2019). Esta estrategia, generalmente, se basa en productos y servicios específicos exclusivos de la región, como son el turismo, el paisaje y los productos agroalimentarios (Folgado-Fernández et al, 2017;Sánchez Escolano & Ruiz Moya, 2019).…”

“…Una de las estrategias para promocionar el desarrollo del potencial endógeno de los espacios rurales consiste en combinar el proceso de identificación territorial con la creación de marcas (Nogué & De San Eugenio Vela, 2017;Cava Jiménez et al, 2019). Se basa, generalmente, en la presencia de productos y la prestación de servicios específicos que son exclusivos de un territorio determinado, como el turismo, el paisaje y los productos agroalimentarios (Folgado et al, 2017).…”

Gastronomy and Tourism: Socioeconomic and Territorial Implications in Santiago de Compostela-Galiza (NW Spain)

“…Gastronomic tourism studies are mainly oriented towards case-studies in relationship with market segmentation, tourist behaviour, preferences and consumption, relevance of food/product image and the strategic role of gastronomy as a driver of tourist destination selection [ 8 , 9 , 10 ], or focused on research about the development of specific strategies to attract gastronomic tourists, as co-creation experiences [ 11 ], or more singular aspects, such as the role of restaurants in the development of gastronomic tourism [ 12 ], in relationship with specific food items: olives [ 13 ], home-made bread [ 14 ], cheese [ 15 , 16 ], wine [ 17 ], blue tuna [ 18 ] or ham [ 19 ]. A broad approximation could be the community-based tourism approach, but usually only in the sense of matching regarding the items offered as a part of community-based tourism [ 20 ].…”

The World of Iberian Ham and its Tourist Potential in the Sierra De Huelva (Andalusia, Spain)

“…Tourism research related to the world of the Iberian pig has advanced in recent years with the completion of various works. However, these studies generally focus on aspects of demand, e.g., tourist profile, rather than on supply and potential of resources as an integral part of the tourism planning process (Cava et al, 2019;Millán et al, 2016). From the patrimonial perspective, the production of Iberian pork sausage has also been approached (Hortelano et al, 2019).…”