Cuisine: a new concept for analysing tourism-agriculture linkages?

Linking food producers and tourism for the benefit of local communities in developing countries has been on the research agenda since the early 1980s. Scholars have elaborated on why linkages rarely fully materialise and they have identified a multitude of factors. Despite 'local food' ent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of tourism and cultural change 2020-11, Vol.18 (6), p.643-658
Main Authors: Laeis, Gabriel C. M., Scheyvens, Regina A., Morris, Carolyn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Community
Consumers
cuisine
Cultural heritage
culture
Developing countries
Economics
Fieldwork
Food
Food supply
hospitality
LDCs
Local communities
Social factors
Supply & demand
Sustainable development
Tourism
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Summary:Linking food producers and tourism for the benefit of local communities in developing countries has been on the research agenda since the early 1980s. Scholars have elaborated on why linkages rarely fully materialise and they have identified a multitude of factors. Despite 'local food' enthusiasm amongst consumers, little has changed in how the tourism industry in developing countries procures food. Mostly, these linkages have been analysed from the common demand-and-supply standpoint. While this approach is valuable for investigating food chains in general, the concept of cuisine is proposed as a more holistic alternative that embeds an economic viewpoint into the cultural context. If tourism is to be used as a mechanism for sustainable development, then tools of analysis need to be chosen accordingly. Rather than relying solely on economic logic, we propose to also examine broader cultural and social factors through the lens of cuisine. This puts kitchen chefs, and possibly other hotel managers, who negotiate the space between guests' expectations, food supply and cultural heritage, at the centre of attention. Based on ethnographic field research by the first author, a case study of tourism-agriculture linkages in Fiji illustrates the value of the concept of cuisine.
ISSN:1476-6825
1747-7654
DOI:10.1080/14766825.2019.1624763