An emerging tourist market: Motivating foodies to visit a food tourism destination

Abstract

Although continued growth of food tourism is of considerable importance to tourism destinations, the literature has yet to provide a comprehensive understanding of the motivation of ‘foodies’ who have the potential for food trips. Thus, this study aims to identify the foodies’ motivations as well as preferred destination attributes by adopting the push-pull framework. Through an online survey, 335 foodies, who were members of Facebook and Linkedin’s networks of foodies and food travel, completed a self-administered questionnaire. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine three push factors including 14 items and two pull factors including 10 items. In addition, t-test analysis was applied to identify the differences in push and pull factors between groups of food tourists and non-food tourists. The study contributes to our understanding of food tourism motivation while providing destination management organizations with information to aid in designing marketing strategies to attract the foodies market.