The Food and Wine Trail: Domesticating a Hybrid.

Abstract

This paper discusses the nature of food and wine trails with a specific focus on whether they are tourism or marketing activities. It is important to engage in this debate as it determines the ways in which food and wine operators perceive their businesses and therefore the way they promote their businesses. The paper provides a potential solution to the unique nature of food and wine trails by discussing the concept of hybridity, a concept frequently used in the social sciences. In suggesting that food and wine trails are hybrid activities, the paper concludes that food and wine trails need to develop themes to make them a coherent whole. In essence, themed food and wine trails suggest that trails are a tourist attraction as much as a marketing mechanism, there is tourism readiness which is a necessity and is largely based upon producers providing tourists with experiences, often shared as 'stories' and that the trail is a total experience implying both the importance of the journey and the integration of the varied producers on the trail into a coherent whole.