Food Tourism Concepts and Issues
For any travelers wherever they tend to travel, food remains an integral part of their trip. Well, it is definitely true that what they eat will define how they will remain throughout their trip or travel. The selection of food or concept of the consumption will be different in case of a foodie but, for a normal traveler with different interest, what the place of visit will plate him doesn’t make much of attraction rather they tend to play safe by ordering what they always are well known to eat for. Most of the travelers; specially from the developed nations, tend to be very much precious and cautious on the food of the destination from the developing and under developed countries taking the issues of hygiene and sanitation. It also has been seen that most of the travelers commonly suffer from food poisoning and diarrhea after consuming the food from new destinations. But, this situation happens to be less in the destination of developed nation and therefore, people tends to be sceptical regarding the others while travelling.
Every destination is unique because of their natural environment, geography, cultural heritage and understandings of their local food ingredients. This is how the food culture develops at around different places and that happens to be a way of life of the indigenous. While the travelling is related to know something about the new places, culture and way of living, it is also to a corner is related about the understanding of food culture. Out of those wide range of travel purposes, travel related to understanding about the food has also its good potential to be a tourism product of a destination. And, applying this concept the developed nations like USA, and most European countries have been a food tourism hub. The tourism concept has been so successful that it plays a great role for their national economy. It is therefore, a great lesson to be learned by all other developing and under developed nations to promote food tourism by creating an identity to their destinations. In order to increase the food tourism they must apply the concept and strategies that the successor had already applied. Out of all, first thing to apply is maintenance of the food hygiene so that the fear of diarrhea and poisonings gets eradicated form the mentality of every other traveler.
USA is well known as Fast food hub, France for their wine and standard classical food, Spain for Molecular gastronomy, Mexico for their merchandise of historic Aztec cuisine, Thailand for Street food, China for their Regional Cuisine, India for Curries, Japan for the Sushi and other healthy options. Lots of nations are promoting their destination with their specific cuisine and are being completely successful. These examples are not just the reference to be taken but are the reality to be adopted. People these days are often being conscious on the health and the food they take on. So, the modern approach would better be the focus on service of the food that is supposed to be beneficial for health of people. As food tourism is all about the travel of people at different destinations for the food the destination offers and about the understandings of the food culture habits and the delicacies. Thus, this concept and the perception of people regarding foods to be in the place of travel explains and clears about how the food should be promoted and placed for it being as tourism product. One who consumes food at their place of origin, has to be placed in such a way that it should be appealing and hygienic. Tourists must also be provided with the information of about the health benefits by consuming the food products and about its nutrition content as well. This in the modern way, will be surprisingly be a great tool as marketing and promotion of the food and also as a better tourism product for the visitors.
Even with the immense potentialities for any different reasons and places, the issues for it’s difficulties and failure are aligned. Even if the places has promoted their regional foods as their tourism products, they have been unable to maintain the essence of hygiene and the obligatory issues regarding the nutrition benefit, originality of produce, and the concept of the origin. Beside these all, the destinations are unaware of the proper way of promotion. The events effect with the conduct of food festival, fairs, farmer’s market, institutional promotion and the show off by the hotels of the local region have been more effective for the development which seen conducted less in the developing destinations and created a loss. Although, Pakistan is rich in its food culture but, it seems to be completely out of it’s great food promotion and is having the loss of a great population of food enthusiasts travelling to the destination. It never means the people travel for food or whoever travels seeks for great food but, this is a fact that weather it be the food junkie or the traveler with no concern with food, all needs food which is nourishing and good for their health. Therefore, if ones food seems to be nourishing and beneficial for the health, strength and mind everybody tends to consumes it. Finally, promoting the food won’t only be benefited for the food service provider but it would also provide the gratitude and income for the people who works to produce it.
