Tourist perceptions of local food : a mapping of cultural values

Abstract

This paper proposes a model that conveys the diversity of tourist culinary perceptions—the hierarchical local food consumption value mapping. The researchers deploy hard laddering to analyze 1593 responses to a questionnaire survey and identified 11 salient attributes, nine consequences, and seven values. Eight cultural groupings were identified. The researchers compared the mappings for each of the eight groupings to determine whether the applicable mappings are distinguished on the basis of tourists' food culture backgrounds. Japanese and Thai respondents generated unique and comparatively simpler maps than other cohorts. The findings show that a hierarchy-based approach can be used to assess tourist perceptions of attributes, consequences, and values as a value map. This study provides culture-based insights into the consumption of local food by tourists.