Investigation of Awareness Level of UNESCO Creative Gastronomy City Hatay from the Perspective of Local Gastronomic Operators

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to examine the awareness level of local gastronomic establishments related to the fact that Hatay is a UNESCO creative gastronomic city. For this purpose, semistructured interviews were held with 8 local gastronomic business managers. Interviews were carried out between November and December 2019 with the deliberate sampling method. Content analysis was applied to the obtained data. Based on the content analysis, the managers; It is concluded that Hatay's high level of knowledge and awareness of tourism assets, perceptions of gastronomy city, customer information activities and promotion and marketing activities. All these results indicate that the managers of local gastronomic enterprises have a high level of knowledge and awareness about declaring Hatay as a UNESCO creative gastronomic city. However, it has been stated that the activities carried out for regional investments and projects such as advertisement, promotion and marketing for the creative gastronomic city are insufficient. It is concluded that the developments regarding gastronomy tourism in Hatay remain limited due to these deficiencies.