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ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS: culinary tourism, importance-performance analysis
The aim of this research was to provide a practical method for assessing satisfaction at a culinary event. Twenty-seven culinary event attributes items were analyzed from an international culinary event. MANOVA was employed to identify differences between importance and performance measures. Importance-performance analysis (IPA) was subsequently used to assist culinary event organizers while identifying critical performance attributes in order to improve customer satisfaction. Findings revealed food and beverage prices, come/ go, convenient parking, and food tasting had high importance scores, yet low performance measures. The use of multiple regression analysis confirmed three out of the four attribute items had a predictive effect on overall satisfaction.
INTRODUCTION
The desire to travel and taste unique and authentic foods is emerging as a new phenomenon in the tourism industry. Historically, hospitality services (food, beverage, and accommodations) have served a supporting role within the larger tourism industry and were considered a necessary component of the product mix, but not a strong enough attraction in itself to motivate tourists to travel (Gunn, 1993). Godfrey and Clarke (2000) categorized a destination's resources as either a principal resource or a supporting resource. Principal resources are those with the strongest pulling power, motivating a tourist to travel. On the other hand, supporting resources are those that supplement a destination's appeal, but do not motivate an individual to travel. More recently, food is being considered a principal resource, attracting individuals to travel and visit a destination specifically for the unique food products offered.
Culinary tourism is emerging as a significant growth area within the travel industry. Culinary tourism promotes visitor attractions with unique and memorable food and drink experiences. Wolf (2002: 5) defined culinary tourism as 'travel for the search and enjoyment of prepared food and drink'. Culinary tourism as defined by Long (2004) is any experience of food or foodways other than one's own. Long (2004) described foodways as the 'full spectrum' of behavior surrounding food, to include physical, social, cultural, economic, spiritual, and aesthetic places. A variety of food-related characteristics can be included in the construct of foodways, such as food preparation, preservation, cooking techniques, menus planning, presentation, eating styles, food culture and origin, and lastly food consumption. Hall and Mitchell (2005: 20) offered...