The intention for a tourist to travel to a destination to experience the local food and beverage created culinary tourism or gastronomic tourism. Nowadays, there are a lot of culinary tours available around the globe for potential tourist to experience foods that are different than their hometown’s specialty. The idea of culinary tourism is to experience others culture through food and beverage (Long, 1998). 1. 2 Development of Culinary Tourism Although culinary tourism looks like a new sub-industry to tourism but it is actually not new.
It has been existed for a long time, only now it is realized and became a new niche that promotes the country’s economic and community in new intercultural insights. Culinary tourism not only caters for all those 4stars or above eateries but it also exists in other sectors, for example street hawkers, food court small stalls and etc. Moreover, it is also can be found in rural or urban areas (Erik, n. d). According to Rand and Heath(2006), researchers claims that culinary tourism has become an alternative form of tourism, with an increased rivals among tourism destination and the desire of tourist to explore more on the destination places .
A qualitative study done by Kivela and Crotts (2006), explain that as a contemporary cultural resource, food and beverage satisfies all the conventional requirements of cultural tourism products. It has shown that the motivation to travel for food and beverage is possible and most likely for the tourist to revisit due to positive experience of a destination. For some destination, culinary tourism is a major role for the country’s revenue generators in their economics. 1. 3 Malaysia’s Culinary Tourism
Malaysia has a wealthy culture and nature to offer in tourism industry. Having diversity in population, culture, ethnics and also tropical climate which contribute beautiful natural scenery makes Malaysia a great travel destination. Significantly, Malaysia had a diverse society but lives in harmony together showing the world its unique identity. Due to its ethnical diversity, it is not a surprise for Malaysia to have so many varieties of local food and beverage that can be offered internationally that contribute to the tourism sector.
Which it is one of the potential factors to attract tourist to visit Malaysia. The uniqueness of Malaysian cuisine could be an opportunity for Malaysia to become a great culinary tourism destination in Asia. Unfortunately, culinary tourism in Malaysia is taken for granted and not so much focus has been given to it. By meaning, this issue is in Malaysia is blurred and rare (Mohamed, 1994) compared to its neighboring countries like Thailand or Singapore. 1. 4 Profile of Potential Culinary Tourist There are a few types of culinary tourist according to Dr.
Steve Smith (2010); There are food tourists usually middle age people or, middle-class women interested in healthy dining, local farmers markets, learning about foods and recipes, family outings. This partly a “ improve our household” motivation Wine tourists also exist, they are primarily middle-age or older people with above-average income interested in winery visits, tastings and collecting. Furthermore, there are also cuisine tourists. There are also upscale people, a balance of men and women who are enthusiastic about all things cuisine, and search those experiences.
These tourists can be recognized through their motivation for travel is food and beverage or opportunistic culinary tourist, where they are not motivated by food and beverage to travel but seek for good local cuisine while travelling. Other than that, there are also accidental culinary tourists, they take advantage of opportunities if they are available, for example, “ This restaurant has a local craft beer and I would like to try that! ” 1. 5 Segments of Culinary Tourists Culinary tourists are divided to segments based on their interest of dining experience.
Those segments are adventurers, those who seek for an exciting, bizarre and exotic dining experiences for example, Anthony Bourdain No Reservations show, which he eat unusual food or drink like bull’s nuts or snake’s blood. There are also ambiences seekers, someone who are into the ambience of the dining experience for example, dining in natural scenery or city view at night. Just like dining at the Singapore Flyers or cruise dining at Putrajaya Lake. Budget diners are also one of the segments where the eaters are seeking for good and inexpensive food.
For example, street hawkers food like at Petaling Street. There are also people who are also go for starred restaurant example like Michelin Restaurants, who seek high-end cuisine that is certified and known to the world, they are called gourmets. Social tourists are those who seek festive food and beverage at bars, pubs or casual eateries for example Munich October Fest, people all over the world would travel to Munich on late September to first week of October to experience October Fest. Next, are the people who look for hot spots, cool place, exclusivity and status is known as trendy consumers.
There are also eclectic diners who would try any food or beverage. Factors Influencing the Behavior 2. 1 Consumer Decision Process Every consumer would go through a Consumer Decision Process no matter what types of products or services they are searching for and Consumer Decision Process takes place when a consumer has a problem, a need or a want. The process duration may be vary depending on the complexity or simple types od products or services. The consumer individuality differences and environmental influences also effects the consumer decisions.
For example, Chloe needs to buy a tissue which is a simple products and not a lot needed to be considered but Ben needs to buy a car which is more complex and a lot have to be considered. Chloe takes less than 5 minutes to decide on the tissue she will purchase. Meanwhile, Ben would take more than a month to buy a car. Consumer Decision Process shows the how consumer solve their problems that cause them to buy or use products (Blackwell et al. 2012, p. 71). Figure 1 below shows the simplified version of Consumer Decision Process for Culinary Tourist adapted from Blackwell et al. 2012, p. 71) added with the example steps taken by a culinary tourist consumer. Figure 1: Consumer Decision Process Model Stage One: Need Recognition One of the factors that influence a culinary tourist to travel maybe due to stress or boredom where he/she thinks that an environmental change during dining would relieve it. Another factor that influence them can be based on past positive experience where he/she has experience a good food or beverage in a certain destination and missing the food or beverage taste. This makes them wants to relive the past memory of the food and beverage.
There are also newbie culinary tourists who are people who wanted to try new food and beverage experience in a destination or passionate culinary tourist who wanted to try new destination food and beverage experience that they never visit before. Other factor that influence a culinary tourist can also be determine from influences of family and friends who tell a story about their past experiences on food and beverage travel trails. Then, urge a person to go to that destination mentioned by family and friends. For example; Ben is a passionate culinary tourist, he wanted to travel because he need a change of environment due to stress at work.
This is a problem for Ben, so he needs a vacation to relax himself to be stress free. Stage Two: Search for Information Before purchasing, consumer will search for information based on products or services they need. There are a lot of sources to search for information. It can be based from past experience like for tourist who wants to relive the past memory as been mention before, they would look for their history travel from how they get there, is it by train, bus or airplane, or from which tour agency they use before.
As mention above, those who travel due to stories they heard from friends and family good experience, they can ask information from the friends and family who went there before. Information can also be extracted by asking from friends and family experience that went to a destination before. Like the tourist mention before who travel due to influence by friends and family travel stories. They would ask from the people who influence them to go. Another source available to look for information is through the World Wide Web as known as the internet. With the technology these days where internet can be access to most places even public places.
Internet has more information to offer, especially when they want to travel overseas. Other source of information is from advertisement or promotion from travel or agencies. They could take note from travel advertisement in televisions, radio or when walking in a shopping mall or public places or they can just walk-in a few travel or tour agency office for enquiry. There are also travel conventions or fairs where a number of travel agency companies in one place to promote their packages like Malaysia Association of Tour & Travel Agents (Matta) Fair. Where people can go to booth by booth to enquire for information on travelling.
For example; Ben searches for information about culinary tourism promotion through internet and he even went to a travel and tour convention to gather information of places to go. Stage Three: Pre-purchase Evaluation of Purchase Pre-purchase evaluation of purchase process occurs after information retrieve is enough, and then they set a list of types of tour packages or travel offers either they want to travel by packages offered by tour or travel agencies or they plan their trip by themselves and destination choices of food or beverage they want to experience and start comparing the options.
If they choose to travel by packages, they can just pay to a tour providers and no need to matters about transportation, place of accommodation and travel route but if they want to travel by themselves without using any tour or travel agencies, they have to worry about these matters and they have to pay to separate service providers. The cons of travelling by agencies is that they are not in control of their travel route and they have to follow the schedule, there might be places that they are not interested to go but they have to go since it is in the package.
The pro of travelling by them is they are in control of their travel route and can decide to go on places that they are interested in. For example; Ben is from America and he wants to travel to Asia. Ben has collected enough information and form a list of options. He starts to option out those offers that unmet his interest or budget for travelling by comparing the options. Until, he concluded to decide on travelling by a tour agency package to Singapore named “ Jacker Travels”. Stage Four: Purchase After evaluating the choices, the consumer can proceed to the next stage that is purchasing.
In this stage, there are two phases, the first one is the consumer must choose the places to purchase the products or services. The consumer must choose a retailer or some would chose to buy from internet, catalogs or etc. After assuring of where to purchase, the next phase is in-store purchases where the salesperson, product displays, electronic media or point-of-purchase advertising. The original idea of purchasing can be change with the influence of the in-store choices. The budget intended to purchase also can affect the original idea of purchase, maybe the budget is oo high or there are products that is more value worth (Blackwell et al. 2012, p. 82). For example; Ben is ready to purchase the tour package. He chose the location that is near to his house. He knows what budget he has and what he wants for the travel. Now, he just have to seal the deal with the company. When he arrive to “ Jacker Travels”, he saw a lot of ads and promotion by the company to Asia destination like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and etc. He went in and talk to the salespersons his intended idea of purchase. Then, the salesperson started to promote other places than Singapore aswell.
After, discussing and in the end, Ben change his decision to travel to Malaysia since it is cheaper and more variety. Stage Five : Consumption After the puchase is made, consumption take place. The consumer can feel like they have made a wrong decision or right decision on purchasing. Usually, the company would send letters or email to make the consumer feel that they have made a right decision. For tourist, it is based on how well the tour goes For example; Ben now has arrive in Malaysia, the tour went as well that he would imagine.
So, he believe that he has made a right decision. Stage Six : Post Consumption Evaluation In this stage, it is about the satissfaction or dissatissfaction after the consumption. For the tourist, it is how they feel after the tour or travels end. If the tourist is so satissfied with their experiences, they would use the tour company again for future purchases. For example; Ben is satisfied with the tour services and had a really great time and he would go to the same tour agency when he wants to travel to anywhere else.
Destination Selection 3. 1 The Destination Image Early in 1970’s, the study of the destination image created when the tourism researcher Hunt (1975) for the first time demonstrated that the destination image plays a major role in tourists’ selection process (Cai, 2002). Currently, general agreement among tourism researchers and academics that results in improved visitation and has astonished upon tourists valuation and selection of destination is due to optimistic destination image (Hall, 2003).
There are a few theory of destination selection process available, one of it is William Gartner’s theory of destination selection process (1993), and Gartner is motivated by Gunn (1972), Gartner has developed a model that explains the important task of the destination image and presents the different selection phases, which potential tourists go through during their selection process. Before people travel to a destination they widen the image and a set of expectations based on previous experience, word of mouth, press reports, advertising and common beliefs (Chon, 1990). 3. Destination Selection Model Destination selection model is how the consumer decides on the destination that they would choose based on the benefits of the destination. In this section, it explained of Malaysia as a culinary tourism destination. Figure 2 is the destination selection model and will be explained throughout after. Figure 2: Destination Selection Model There are four reasons why Malaysia is a good culinary destination. Even though Malaysia’s culinary tourism is not focused but Malaysia is actually a potential culinary tourism destination because of the four major influence factors.
Choices of State to Visit Malaysia has thirteen states and three federal territories in total consist of; Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (Kuala Lumpur), Federal Territory of Labuan (Victoria), Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (Putrajaya), Johor (Johor Bahru), Kedah (Alor Setar), Kelantan (Kota Bharu), Malacca (Malacca Town), Negeri Sembilan (Seremban), Pahang (Kuantan), Perak (Ipoh), Perlis (Kangar), Penang (Goerge Town), Sabah (Kota Kinabalu), Sarawak (Kuching), Selangor ( Shah Alam) and Terengganu (Kuala Terengganu).
Every state or federal territory has their own unique culture and traditional food but some might have similarity with neighboring states or federal territories. This makes the consumer to have more choices to choose to decide on where the places should they visit in Malaysia to eat. The most popular culinary destination places in Malaysia are Penang and Malacca. Even Malaysian, they travel there to taste their food and beverage. Varieties of Food Other than choosing which state to travel to, consumer can also make their selection through the varieties of Malay, Chinese and Indian food and beverage.
Even the food would differ in a few state based on their races too. For example, the Chinese food in Ipoh would differ from the Chinese food in Penang. Tropical Environment Malaysia is greatly blessed with a rich and diverse biodiversity. Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia, both just north of the equator, are subject to the same movement of air masses and have similar climates. Temperatures and precipitation vary by elevation and proximity to the sea, but temperatures tend to be uniform year-round with annual average temperatures ranging from 23?
C to 34? C, with rainfall varying from 1, 300mm to 4000mm. These along with high humidity hasled to the development of a rich flora and fauna. Furthermore, the topography of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak is picturesque with hills and mountains in the interior rising from the vast coastal plains. In addition Malaysia’s long coastline and many coral-fringed islands, with Straits of Malacca to the west and South China Sea to the east have given rise to a large number of beaches and marine parks (Sengupta, n. d. , p. 7).
Malaysia has a tropical climate, where some of the foreign tourists like to experience and feel. This is also a factor that influence tourist to come to Malaysia where they want to enjoy the environment. For example, a foreign tourist that likes beach and eating in tropical climate. So, he/she would choose to come to Malaysia to dine near a beach with tropical climate weather. Diversity in Cultures Diversion of culture also affects the decision to select a destination. Malaysia has many cultures since there are many races in Malaysia like Malay, Chinese, Indian and others.
Culinary tourist is not only looking for food to eat but the methods of serving and cooking that would amaze them. Methods of serving could be from the way the waiters wears or traditional costumes or the way of presenting the dish. Methods of cooking could be the way they cook the dish or special pots or pans to serve a food. In the present scenario Malaysia is one of the most sought after tourist destination in the world. Tourists from various parts of the world visit the place in large numbers every year. Its rich culture, scenic beauty ttracts people from all over the world. The tourism industry has shown a constant rise in the number of visitors visiting Malaysia over the years. The available data shows that from 2000 to 2008 there has been a sharp increase in the number of visitors visiting Malaysia with a temporary decline during 2003 due to the effect of 9/11 bombing in USA and Bali bombing in in 2002 and Gulf War in 2003. From 2000 to 2008 the number of visitors increased by more than 53% which is more than half. The composition of the tourists is also variable.
Those tourists which come from the countries forming ASEAN are known as intra-ASEAN and those from the rest of the world are known as extra-ASEAN. The percentage of intra-ASEAN visitors is always much higher than the extra-ASEAN visitors. This may be possibly due to easy and cheaper access to Malaysia from this country (Sengupta, n. d. , p. 7). Impacts on Malaysia 4. 1 Economy Malaysian’s tourism developments can be seen from its earliest era. Comparing with South-East Asian states such as Indonesia and Thailand for instance, Malaysia was less developed in the tourist industry sector.
Currently now, Malaysia has become the country’s second biggest source of foreign exchange and the third largest economy sector. Tourism sector has contributed GDP (gross domestic product) growth, investment and employment as well as strengthening the services account of the balance of payments. Due to tourism major growth, related service industries like accommodation, food, transportation, entertainment and other small sized industries have also received a hit in their growth. It has shown constant growth in tourism from the receipts. The receipts increased from RM 8580. million in 1998 to RM 53367. 7 million in 2009 which is various increase in the time period. Except for 2003, the receipts have been progressively growing over the years. In 2008, an increase of 7. 6% from the previous year was earned in tourist a receipt which was contributed by the growth of arrivals and tourist expenditure from the region. The five main contributors are Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, China and Australia. It is noteworthy that among these though a less number of visitors come from Australia (427076) it has contributed significantly to the tourist receipts (RM 1697. million) than the other countries.
