COULINARY TOURISM

It is a different way of tourism very famous nowadays. There are many regions in all Spain that their way of live is basically the tourism, but some of them are famous for their restaurants.

The World Food Travel Association, define Culinary Tourism or Food Tourism as: " The pursuit and enjoyment of unique and memorable food and drink experiences , both far and near " 

In many places they organize culinary tours to show the gastronomy and the typical dishes.

Some towns and villages offer apart of the gastronomic tours the culture, and also the monuments of the village. 

Many customers think that culinary tourism is a different way of know different places, and enjoy the food, an important thing nowadays.

There are restaurants that offer degustations of the main interesting and famous dishes, you can also try different wines, and sometimes they organize sessions where they show you different ways of preparing a dish. 

This kind of tourism is very famous in rural places, like little villages in the mountain, because they want to promote their products and also attract people. For that reason, many Hotels near this places, decided to make advertisements offering accommodation and exclusive tours round restaurants, bars... just to introduce their different services and products. 

Doing this things, many villages started to earn money and to be known in different places, and the number of visitors have increased a lot. 

Coulinary Tourism has advantages for all this villages, towns and cities. Some of the advantages or benefits are:

• More visitors arrivals
• More sales (rooms, ariplanes seats, restaurants meals...) This not only involves restaurants, but also Hotels because people have to accommodate in somewhere, planes, or any other kind of transport. 
• More media coverage
• More tax revenue: the fact that more tourists arrive to a place, this mean that they will pay taxes and the revenue of the village will increase. 
• More people will known the place

But Coulinary Tourism, is not only going to Restaurants and Bars, but also going to the different street markets that you can find in every city. By going to the street markets you will know better the kind of food that they eat, and also the culture, because you will have the opportunity to see people from many places. 

In our oppinion, we think that this is a good way of travelling and of tourism, because it's different and at the same time you can also know the culture and the most important palces of a city or village. 

The Srategy that involves this Coulnary Tourism be think that is Cost advantage and Differentiation. 

Cost Advantage because the prices are a little bit more expensive that going only to visit a place, but the service that they offer you is better and different, for that reason they have to have their products well organized and think different ways of introduce their products and their services to attract people and be successful. 

Do you think that here in Catalonia Coulinary Tourism is important? Or  maybe we have to promote more our tipical dishes?