Taxonomy of Gastronomy Tourist

Abstract

Gastronomy tourism has been a rising trend as a way to experience destination culture and taste food and beverages incidental to destination. The aim of this study is using taxonomy to group the tourists who visit Gaziantep come here and whose primary purpose is gastronomic tourism. For this purpose, based on the subjective ideas and perceptions of tourists, it is aimed to reveal groups with similar ideas through the Q method. The valid data obtained from 36 participants constituting the research sample was analyzed through the Q methodology, which allows the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Based on the information obtained as a result of the study, four different gastro-tourists have been introduced: “regular tourist, local seekers, genuine tourist and novelty seekers”. Regular tourists seek food and beverages which are familiar to them whereas local seekers are gastronomy tourists who look for local foods and introductory information about them. While genuine tourists give importance to food and beverages as a cultural feature of the destination, novelty seekers see gastronomy as an escape from daily routines.