The Attractiveness of Local Cuisine and Its Influence on Chinese Domestic Tourists' Perceptions of Destinations.

摘要

Cuisine is a critical component of tourism product. Dining in a destination can be tourists' important experiences and further influence their satisfactions and perceptions of the destination. However, the contributions of local cuisine consumption to tourists' satisfactions and perceptions of destinations have not been sufficiently explored. This study attempts to bridge these research gaps by addressing three research questions. First, what is local cuisine attractiveness and how to evaluate it? Second, what factors are appropriate to segment Chinese domestic tourists in terms of their preferences of destinations' cuisine? Third, to what extent, local cuisine contributes to Chinese domestic tourists' perceptions of destinations? A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was employed.;The findings of this study revealed that local cuisine attractiveness can be evaluated using the attributes of local cuisine, such as flavor, hygiene, reputation, novelty and cultural meaning. The local cuisine attractiveness is closely related to tourists' satisfactions with their trips and tourists' perceptions of destination attractiveness, irrespective of types of destinations. In other words, the contribution of local cuisine to a destination is significant and critical. Tourists who are interested in local cuisine and knowledgeable of local cuisine perceive the local cuisine and the destination more attractive, while tourists' past experiences of the local cuisine did not influence their perceptions of the local cuisine and the destination in this study.;The main theoretical implications of this study include the identification of underlying attributes of local cuisine, establishment of a new measurement assessing local cuisine attractiveness, connecting tourists' preferences of local cuisine with their perceptions toward local cuisine and destinations, and extending the destination perception model into an activity-mediated destination perception model. Regarding practical implications, this study reminds practitioners in tourism industry to pay more attention on tourists' eating experience, and stresses that targeted customers for destinations with famous local cuisine are tourists who have involvement and knowledge of local cuisine. The results of this study also provide a measurable tool to evaluate and improve local cuisine of destinations.