Generation Y Tourists' Foodways: Food Behavior and Preferences at Home and on Holiday

Abstract

The existing literature emphasize the motivational role of food tourist and destination attractiveness in travel choices but little research has been done in the foodways of tourists for whom food may be not primary motivation for traveling but who still are interested in food. In addition, there is no research on Generation Y tourists in relation to food. Therefore, the thesis attempts to explore Generation Y tourists' foodways and tries to uncover the relationship between their food choices on holidays and when at home. The exploratory study takes a constructivisic stance involving a qualitative multi-method approach and it employs a two-step collection and analysis of the empirical data. The first step includes netnography in form of blog reviews about food and travel and unstructured exploratory interviews as well as a literature review that formed the conceptual framework of the thesis. The second step is 20 in-depth interviews. Even though the netnographic research of the blog reviews and exploratory interviews were made first and helped to create the interview guide the analysis combines all collected data in one. An interpretative and semiotic position was followed in data analysis and interpretation. Further, all the findings were analyzed within the conceptual framework. The biggest findings are that it seems that even though Gen Y tourists do not choose a destination based on food and is not food tourists, while at a destination they will travel around in the area for special food-related experiences that friends and locals recommend. Also, when they are back home they tend to cook the local dishes they tried at a destination as it extends the holiday experience and by doing it they change their foodways by expanding their range of food and acquired tastes. The analysis also reveals that Gen Y tourists' foodways on holidays very much depend on their past travel and food history: the more they travel and taste different food the more their food habits change. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that positive food experiences at a destination make Gen Y tourists more open-minded about new foodways in next trips and at home, whereas negative ones may hold back their intention to try unusual dishes for a while relying on their habitual taste. The findings highlight that across the different individuals changes take different time and happen to a different extent, and they support the importance of cultural and demographical factors. Moreover, socialization with others and the nature of the trip may affect Gen Y tourists' food behaviors at home and across holidays.

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A master thesis from Aalborg University

Generation Y Tourists' Foodways: Food Behavior and Preferences at Home and on Holiday