The culinary intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO: a review of journal articles in EBSCO platform

Gastronomy as a Sign of the Identity and Cultural Heritage of Tourist Destinations: A Bibliometric Analysis 2001–2020

“…Although international gastronomic heritage has cultural, identity and economic functions, it has not attracted relative attention in academic circles. Thus far, only [13] has published scientific literature related to international gastronomic heritage through a literature review. Faced with this apparent lack of academic interest, some data highlights the importance of the impact of gastronomic heritage on economic development.…”

“…Table 1 presents a sample of researchers who analyzed the literature related to gastronomy through a systematic review or bibliometric analysis. The two articles [13,51] that considered gastronomy in relation to UNESCO's ICH are not replicable because the keyword combinations used in the search are indeterminate and cover periods prior to the definition of ICH. The first article search formula, [51], was imprecise because, on the one hand, it combined the keywords "intangible" and "heritage" and, on the other, "gastronom*" and "heritage".…”

“…The authors did not find a common definition of gastronomic heritage in their search, nor a significant impact of the ICH list on the marketing of gastronomy. In relation to the second article, [13], the authors used indeterminate combinations of the keywords "food", "culinary", "cuisine", "heritage" and "UNESCO" and found references to UNESCO's ICH list, such as "French gastronomy" and "Mediterranean diet". The rest of the literature analyses in Table 1 are focused on "food tourism" [15,52,53], "wine tourism" [54][55][56][57] and "gastronomy tourism" [58].…”

“…Malaysia was also regarded by the UNWTO as a model and has received international publicity. In recent years, several authors have addressed traditional cuisine as a cultural element and identity of tourist destinations [13] as well as gastronomic heritage as a factor in sustainable place development [14]. Moreover, tourism destination marketing and management organizations (DMOs) are interested in the influence of gastronomic heritage as a factor in tourism development [15].…”

“…For that reason, this study focused on gastronomic heritage as a more general concept that includes other important types of heritage, such as culinary heritage. However, world gastronomic heritage as recognized by UNESCO has not received relative attention in academia [13]. Gastronomic heritage tourism for the purpose of revitalizing a region or country's economy rarely seems to include world gastronomic heritage as a theme.…”