With summer officially here, travel is on the mind of many. Whether you go to the beach, the mountains, the lake, or go the cultural route and visit museums and take classes, you’ll also need to eat. Good food makes your travel experience even better. Shaved country ham and arugula pizza can be the highlight of your drive through the Virginia Highlands. Sweet, crunchy apples just picked at the orchard are marvelous, and you discover, are good car snacks too. Eating becomes more than just to satisfy the hunger. Eating is central to your tourist experience.
While food is a necessary part of a trip, tourists’ perspectives vary considerably about food. You may approach new food with enthusiasm, dislike, or indifference. Danish scholar and expert on tourism, Anne-Mette Hjalager offers a bourdieusian model of culinary tourism experiences based on lifestyle preferences and values. The model depicts the motives and behaviors of tourists and their attitudes and preferences for food and eating based on four types: 1) recreational, 2) existential, 3) diversionary, and 4) experimental. Given the broad spectrum of perspectives, you can have varying degrees of interest in food and eating. Of course, you can have characteristics of all four types, but one or two will be more dominant. Hjalager’s model also includes colors from the four color personality types: red, blue, yellow, or green personality type.
4 types of culinary tourists
1. Recreational – Red
They prefer familiar foods to feel safe and comfortable in a destination. They seek fast-food chains, package tour foods, and restaurants with a predictable menu. After the trip, no change to pre-visit behavior occurs. They rely on word of mouth and other authentic sources.
Spending time with good friends and being somewhere that feels familiar and safe are key motivations for tourism. In wine, for example, the general wine tourist visits a vineyard, winery, or wine festival for the purpose of recreation. The motivation is not wine per se, but the desire to have a relaxing day out. Values include respect for others, family roots, frugality, and stability.
2. Diversionary- Yellow
They love to party and are social but aren’t really concerned about the setting. They would rather not take the time and energy to research dining information. Rather recommendations and top-10 lists are preferred. Values include excitement, courage, investment, and responsibility for oneself.
3. Existential- Green
They seek out local and regional cuisine and eat where the locals eat. ‘Tourist’ means ‘Westernized’ hotel/resort food and fast food while the farmer’s market means ‘authentic’ and local. Existentialists are relaxed and laid back, preferring simple and rustic food places over gourmet and fancy.
They search for authentic sources of travel information on the internet, such as personal travel blogs, and read specialized travel literature (e.g. James Michener’s series). They’re interested in travel cookbooks that will transport them into another world. Magnus Nilsson’s The Nordic Cookbook is a perfect pre-travel study of the Nordic region with more than 700 recipes and gorgeous landscape photography.
Existentialists are interested in cooking schools, cooking classes, fishing trips, vineyard tours, and food festivals. Join other foodies on Culinary Walking Tours and sample bites at different eateries while learning about the history of the area and restaurants. Values include individualism, environmentalism, anti-elite, and social.
4. Experimental- Blue
They are trendy and embrace the latest foods, flavors, and cooking techniques. They seek out restaurants with innovative menus, smart designs, and chic service. They travel for personal indulgence, to experience the good life with fine cuisine and being pampered. They are the tourists who seek not only vineyards but a specific grape wine.
They read stylish food and travel magazines, such as Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, and Saveur. They travel with a detailed itinerary. Time management is important, and experimentalists want to maximize their time at the destination. Guided tour of a museum, Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus Tours form part of their tourism experience.
Values include freedom, prestige, achievement, and materialism.
Which type of tourist are you?
Learning our tourism type is important. First, it helps us understand our priorities in travel and food. Second, it also helps us understand why there are both global chains and local restaurants side-by-side at a destination. Third, from a marketing standpoint, restaurants and food-industry businesses can tailor their marketing based on the values of the targeted culinary tourist.