Flavours of wanderlust: tourist segmentation and the pull of famous local food outlets

Abstract

Local food plays an important role in delivering a memorable experience to tourists. In fact, previous research has identified various types of tourists, based upon their commitment to eating and their interest in local dishes and food habits. This paper makes a novel contribution, as no previous studies to date, have explored the priority of selection factors for dining in famous local food outlets according to various segments of tourists, which are segmented as per the relevance of local gastronomy in their destination selection. To achieve the proposed objectives, a structured questionnaire has been used to find out the opinion of diners in the outlets which base their offerings on traditional preparations made with quality local ingredients, in the city of Amritsar- regarded as the food capital of Punjab. The study identifies and validates three segment of tourists using cluster and discriminant analysis respectively. Selection factors prioritized by each segments, are assessed using Garrett ranking technique. Implications of this research are beneficial for proprietors of food outlets, government and all other stakeholders associated with gastronomy tourism. Future research can study the association between dining experience and satisfaction of tourists in famous local food outlets, as per the identified segmentation.