CULINARY

TOURISM IN
INDIA- AN
EMERGING
CONCEPT
Table of Contents
Sr.No Chapter Page
No.

INTRODUCTION
The Food is the Attraction1.

Food is one of the essential elements of the total experience2. Culinary

Tourism is an expression to describe the tourists’ experience of other lands
through their food and beverages. The term was first coined by Lucy Long,
an Asst. Prof of Popular Culture and Folklore at Bowling University in Bowling
Green, Ohio, in the year 1998. Also known as Cuisine or Gastro Tourism,
culinary tourism is closely related to Regional Cuisine Movement3. Culinary
Tourism is interrelated to Agri-tourism, though its specific focus is on the
search for and enjoyment of prepared food and drinks. Culinary tourism
promotes all distinctive and impressive gastronomic experience. Culinary
tourism promotes:

• Economical Development

• Community Development

• Intercultural Experiences

The culinary tourism experience can be urban or rural with examples

including restaurant, wineries, breweries, delis, classic diners and roadside
stands. An increasingly significant number of tourists state that food is a key
aspect of the travel experience and that they believe experiencing a
country’s food is essential to understanding its culture4. Nearly 100% of
tourists eat out when travelling and dining is consistently one of the top
three favorite tourist activities. Considering that culinary art is the only art
form that stimulates all 5 human senses (touch, taste, sound, smell and
sight), it is why one need not wonder that the role of dining out can make the
most impact of a travel experience. It is about groups using food to “sell”
their Histories and to construct marketable and publicly attractive identities.
It is low impact, high yielding tourism and a tool for economic and
community development5.

Food, inspite of being such an important and integral part of the experience,
it is only recently that the tourist expenditure on food has become a subject
of tourism study, in its own right. The ability of food to attract tourist has
only been recently acknowledged.

1
Lucy Long, Culinary Tourism, University Press of Kentucky, 2003
2
C. Michael Hall and Liz Sharples, Food tourism, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006
3
Erik Wolf, The Hidden Harvest, 2004
4
Anon, Cuisine of the World, Bon Appetit, 1996
5
A.Arse and T. Marsden, The social Construction of International Food, Economic Geography,
1993
The culinary tourism industry explores how food and drink can attract
visitors. The culinary tourism industry worldwide, especially in Europe and
North America has devised various methods to do so. Creating saleable
tourism products, which cater to tourist interest as well as aid regional
development.

Primary Culinary Tourism Products include:

• Cuisine Tours

• Creating food routes and trails

• Visit to farms, fisheries and other direct sources of ingredients as well

as regional dishes

• Visit to large food and drink production plants and visitors attractions

• Food festivals and special events with food as focus

Secondary Tourism Products include:

• Promotion of unusual local food in shops

• Ethnic and specialty cuisine restaurants and cafes

• Theme catering

• Sale of patented packaged authentic regional food in duty free shops,

railways and airways

More secondary products can be made innovative depending on the

specialty of the region. With globalization setting-in in India has led to
changing lifestyle and the media through magazines and channels is
emphasizing on importance of different food from various regions.

Indian food, as a product is sensibly used overseas, then in India. It always

had potential to become an identifiable super brand by itself. The highlights
of Indian cuisine are as follows:

• It is associated with an ancient and continuous culture

 • Indian cuisine is highly diverse in its method of preparation, service as
well as the ingredients used

• Most importantly, the harmony in the spices that is achieved, given the
huge number of spices that are used

• The Ayurvedic diet originating from India has curative properties and
has a remedy for almost all modern day ailments6

As a conclusion, a comparison on the relative merits and weakness of the

application of the culinary tourism products to India, the Indian scenario is
drawn. The most important realization is that India should seek protection of
the unique food and drink heritage of the different regions of India by:

• Give statutory protection to local specialty so that they cannot be

legally copied elsewhere

• Use professional marketing techniques to capture the international

tourist who wants to see the real India

• Bring in a change of attitude towards food; consider eating as an

enjoyable and de-stressing activity, rather than a daily routine chore

Purpose:

This thesis is an attempt to present a systematic account on the present

trends in the emergence of culinary tourism in India. Culinary tour packages
have been studied in a fairly detailed manner. An attempt has also been
made to trace the impact of culinary tourism in regional development and
conservation of culinary traditions in India. An emphasis has been made on
food as an attraction in destination marketing.

An attempt has been made to portray the role of food in a tourists’

exploration of a destination. Considerable effort is being taken to bringing
about the fact that the cuisine of a place is in fact an authentic reflection of
its history, geography, flora & fauna and the political scene of the place and
an exciting route for understanding the place7.

One aim of this thesis is to develop culinary tourism services and to create a
high quality, marketable culinary tourism route in the various regions of
6
Sri Sri Ravishankara, Ayurvedic Diet, Macmillan Publishers, 2000
7
Lucy Long, Culinary Tourism, University Press of Kentucky, 2003
India. A study on culinary tourism market in India, as well as other countries,
has been carried out to make the concept and its potential better known in
India. Although there are some culinary tourism products in India, the
concept is still new, underdeveloped and undervalued by many tourism
professionals.

The marketing needs and possibilities of rural tourism enterprises interested

in culinary tourism have been studied to create a joint marketing and quality
system for culinary tourism in India. Throughout the study, the purpose is to
examine successful destinations and products in addition to exploring
emerging examples of culinary tourism regions in India.

Scope and Limitations:

The present thesis attempts to provide a fair coverage, as far as possible, on

the various aspects of culinary tourism, yet, the field of study being relatively
new and almost non existent in India at present, it makes it difficult to gather
information as most sources show reluctance to reveal information. There is
limited support from state tourism boards at present.

Although various types of source materials are available for study of culinary
tourism, yet, when they are critically analyzed, it is found that they are
inadequate in giving an accurate and continuous account. Secondly, as the
phenomenon of culinary tourism is itself of very recent origin, the source
material is limited and most schemes adopted by various agencies are yet to
come to conclusive results.

Review of Sources:

The term Culinary Tourism was coined by Professor Lucy Long, an assistant
professor of Popular Culture and Folklore at Bowling University, Bowling
Green, Ohio and this is mentioned in her book Culinary Tourism8. Many
other sources such as Food Tourism Around The World: Development,
Managements and Markets 9edited by C. Michael Hall, Liz Sharples,
Richard Mitchell, Niki Macaronis and Brock Camborne shed light on this new,
yet highly dynamic, field of tourism study. The Hidden Harvest Culinary
Tourism10 by Erik Wolf is a monumental work of the celebrity president of
the culinary tourism association which emphasizes culinary tourism as a
8
ibid
9
Lee Joliffe, Food Tourism Around The World: Development, Managements and Markets, Butterworth-Hienemann
10
Erik wolf, The Hidden Harvest, 2005
profound business opportunity to all food producers and processes, till the
food reaches the table.

Food Culture in India11 by Colleen Taylor Sen, has been a valuable source
of the food and lifestyle of different Indian regions. Taste of India 12by
Madhur Jaffrey is another well known book on the various regional cuisines of
India.

The Culinary Tourism Industry

Social and Cultural Significance of Food13

As Human Beings started settling in specific areas, the activities of Planting,

Nurturing, Harvesting and Distribution of Food became an integral part of
Community life. Ever since then, we have been experiencing food to play a
role of paramount importance in all festivals and celebrations. The First
Nations have always created and shared meals in their ceremonial
gatherings. Harvest has always been a reason for celebration and is
celebrated differently in different regions of India. Food preparation and

11

12

13
M.M.Chaudhary, Eating by the Book, 2001
service of all festivals celebrated in India has been well defined and deviation
from the tradition, even today, is negligible14.

14
Rupert Adams, Politics of Food,part-II