Food in Tourism. Relevant Research Angles.

Abstract

In the last decades, local food grabbed the attention of policymakers, advisors, entrepreneurs, and researchers worldwide. Food turned into an emerging topic in relation with tourism and leisure activities, due to its versatility: it offers means for local and regional development, it has potential to strengthen identity and enable the preservation of cultural heritage, traditional skills and products, it is a strong educational and knowledge transmission tool, and it is suitable for destination development. Performing a content analysis of a selected international and Romania related literature, this paper sums up the main topics and angles of research conducted globally on the complex topic of food tourism, but also points out some of the subjects addressed in the Romanian context. The aim of the study is to shed light on the foci of current research regarding food tourism and to see to which extent is the Romanian research in this field up to date. The list and the depicted topics are not necessarily exhaustive, yet they surely integrate the most relevant research themes and actual available results. As main conclusion, we can assert that the rich and manifold surveys reflect the high interest in food tourism, and that this subject is an emergent topic in the Romanian research community.

Sociology of Food Tourism Research Opportunities: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…Research on tourism positions food as necessary because of food consumption during tourist trips (Havadi-Nagy, 2020;Kocevski & Risteski, 2018). Hall & Sharples (2003, p. 11) distinguish between food as tourism and food in tourism.…”