Food-related personality traits and the moderating role of novelty-seeking in food satisfaction and travel outcomes

Previous research on tourist food consumption acknowledges that food-related personality traits, including neophilic and neophobic tendencies, can impede or encourage tourists to try novel food at a destination. However, the travel motivation literature advocates that tourists tend to be in a genera...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tourism management (1982) 2016-12, Vol.57, p.387-396
Main Authors: Ji, Mingjie, Wong, IpKin Anthony, Eves, Anita, Scarles, Caroline
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Food-related personality traits
Neophilic
Neophobic
Novelty seeking
Satisfaction
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Summary:Previous research on tourist food consumption acknowledges that food-related personality traits, including neophilic and neophobic tendencies, can impede or encourage tourists to try novel food at a destination. However, the travel motivation literature advocates that tourists tend to be in a general condition of seeking novel experiences, including sampling a destination's novel food. How food-related personality traits interact with novelty pursuits to influence tourists' food consumption and subsequent satisfaction and travel outcomes remains unknown. The study proposes a framework of tourist food experience that leads from food-related personality traits, novel food consumption, and satisfaction to travel outcomes. While the results support the baseline model, the moderating effect of novelty seeking demonstrates that novelty seeking does not moderate the relationship between personality traits and consumption of novel food. It does, however, moderate satisfaction with food. •Food-related personality traits and novelty-seeking travel motivation suggest conflicting projection on tourist food preference. How food-related personality traits interact with novelty pursuits to influence tourists' preferences and consumption remains unknown.•The existing studies on tourist food preference tend to analyse food-related concepts in isolated but obscure their connection with broader tourism concepts.•By reconnecting a food-specific concept with overall tourist novelty-seeking motivation, this study provides a more holistic understanding of the tourist experience with food.
ISSN:0261-5177
1879-3193
DOI:10.1016/j.tourman.2016.06.003