Academic Paper Reading – Gastronomy as an element of attraction in a tourist destination: the case of Lima, Peru

By the means of challenging myself, I picked an off-topic and non-IT related paper to really see how I can understand a new topic though I have quite an interest in this particular paper.

Abstract Overview

Extracting the ideas provided in the abstract, the paper’s abstract aims to analyze Lima tourists behaviour towards the gastronomy as the primary motive for visiting a destination. The methods shows using a segmentation of tourist based on their motivations on gastronomy. Result shows that the intent of enjoying new food expereince and socialization generates greater satisfaction for the tourists.

Research Question

The paper aims to learn more about gastronomic motivation and satisfaction of tourists in Lima, Peru. It also adds the intention to make segmentations of the tourists to understand more of their relationship with the local food and how it affects tourism in Lima.

Methods

The researchers essentially use surveys to conduct this research in Lima. The survey take samples of tourists visiting various aspects considered. The survey are spread to different culinary establishment, different days and times to reach a wide range of people. The survey itself is divided into three parts to search for tourists’ interest in gastronomy, their satisfaction towards local food and their sociodemographic characteristics.

The research states that 572 surveys were taken in which 544 is valid. There were no restraint that is set on the scope of the respondents. Sample number and sampling errors percentage are also presented in the research. The data analysis was done with a computer program for grouping the data by segment categories that has been priorly set.

Credibility

I would believe that this research paper shows high credibility as it is published through a platform with affiliation to Korea Food Research Institute and backed by BioMed Central Ltd which is called Journal of Ethnic Foods. This platform has been publishing free and easy access journals for 15 years. It has a peer-review system in which every submitted paper goes through a single-blind peer-review system and reviewed by two or more experts.

Conclusion and Ideas

From a general view, food has always been viewed as something iconic. It can even be considered as a cultural aspect of a destination. Though personally I have not been to Lima where the research is conducted, the paper showed a good idea of how local gastronomy should be more considered as a tourist attraction.

I found out that tourists motivation could be segmented through different intents and it highly relates to its satisfaction of culinary experience. One of the most intriguing facts that was proven in the paper that older tourists and tourists who has higher degree has more interest in gastronomy. These tourists’ behaviour proved that tourism, heritage and gastronomy should be linked tightly as it is the main reason for tourists to enjoy the destination.

Though this research was conducted in Lima, Peru and showed the results in that specific location. It opens a door to other destinations in the world to research more about the relationship between gastronomy and tourism. This research could be used to back the idea of sustaining local gastronomy as a part of the tool of tourist competition.

Short Summary

The conducted research targets foreign tourists in Lima, Peru which has 2 top 10 best restaurants of the world in 2017. It is the first research on learning the behaviour of tourists in their relationship with gastronomy as a motivation to enjoy a destination. In addition, the research will find out that local gastronomy might have a strong impact to tourism.

The research is done by doing a surveys in different aspects being considered to get the widest range of respondents as possible. The main participants of the survey would be foreign tourists visiting Lima. The tourists are segmented to different categories from how their motivations of visiting a destination to the level of satisfactions on the local gastronomy.

One of the segmentation separates the tourists by their perception of food for their travel which are survivors, enjoyers and experiencers. Experiences showed greater interest in the local gastronomy which their motivation to experience new foods is the highest among other clusters. Though through all of the segement of tourists, socialization and new food experience represents the highest motivation dimesions.

The research concluded with the concept that travelers visit a destination with the main intention to explore the local gastronomy. Lima as a tourist destination should aim to strengthen and sustain the local gastronomy to support their tourism as it is shown in tourists’ attitude towards local food. This paper is aimed to create a bridge between tourism and gastronomy not only in Latin America but also in other parts of the world.