On the basis of your research of the organization and products/product lines you

Question

On the basis of your research of the organization and products/product lines you selected, describe your product and product category and then consider how products, processes, and organizations change over a product category's life cycle. Also, from your understanding of Heany's and Robertson's typologies, which product category does your product fall into? What does this tell you about how the product should be developed and marketed? Use side headings to clearly format your responses. Specifically, discuss how the product that you selected relates to the new product development process steps.

Explanation / Answer

Destination Management Organization (Tourism Organization)

Product Line- Culinary Tourism

Since the beginning of the 21st century various changes took place in respect to travel motivations. The behavior of tourists has changed and nowadays holidays become shorter but more frequent. More and more new destinations and trends are developing to satisfy this new preference of tourism.

Food and beverages have always played a major role in the tourism product,although they were mainly seen as a supply to the tourists via hotels, restaurants and resorts. In recent years the meaning of food and beverages has changed i.e. Food and wine mean more than just eating and drinking.

More recently food and beverages in connection with tourism have been acknowledged as an important subject of research and study. Even more, they are now seen as a part of the character and culture of a destination. Tourists can experience this in various ways such as visiting local restaurants, gourmet fairs or festivals, markets, cooking classes, gourmet dining, guided tours of food and beverage produces and many others.

Culinary tourism is an essential feature of local tourism advertisement for a destination. It promises an element of regional agricultural and economic growth and a differentiated component to a rival destination market. Food and beverages do not only get more attention from researchers and destinations, but media also focuses more heavily on this topic. Specific magazines such as the Gourmet Traveler, Food & Travel, Cuisine, radio shows, internet platforms and various food and lifestyle channels on TV focus solely on food and beverages. One can say that this reflects the shifting way of living and the importance certain products and service have as a status symbol. The task as a destination is to encourage such lifestyle and to identify the relevance of food and beverages in terms of quality, originality, taste,representation and experience. Now it is about how and why we eat as this shows who we are, our society and culture we live in and how and why we travel.

How to make culinary tourism more attractive and popular to young people and how the image and marketing of culinary tourism would need to change in order to attract this particular segment:-

1. Food and tourism -what is culinary tourism all about?

To travel with the interest and motivation in food has many names in the tourism field. The most common name is food tourism, culinary tourism, cuisine tourism,gourmet tourism, food and wine tourism, food and beverage tourism, rural tourism,cuisine travel, urban tourism, gastronomy tourism, and taste tourism, which all include the idea of travelling to experience and taste food products. It includes..

(a). Travel that includes the appreciation and consumption of local/regional foods;

(b). Travel for the primary purpose of experiencing and enjoying food and beverages or to attend culinary-specific   activities such as cooking schools, visiting a food or beverage production/processing site, a farmer’s market or a taste trail;

(c). Unique dining and beverage experience.

2. Culinary tourism as a travel motivation -who is a culinary tourist?

Food and to eat are one of the major needs of the human race, but many people see it as more than just the simple feeding. Especially while travelling eating can be part of an exciting, stimulating, significant, ceremonial experiences and gratifying the senses. For example, a simple lunch or dinner will always stay in memory when it was experienced at a breath taking place or sight or after an exciting day of visiting a new destination.

Lately more research has been made to identify the difference between wine and food tourist and to use this newly gained knowledge for focused and precised marketing. It indicated that consumer behaviour research is important for stakeholders in wine tourism because it can help provide important insights into who the wine tourist is, what motivates them to visit a winery, take a guided tour, attend a wine festival or purchase wine and why, thus allowing marketers and managers to effectively target and develop markets.

The Strategy Action Plan 2005-2015 from the culinary tourism in Ontario makes a distinction between travellers which are enthusiasts and who are intentional.Furthermore, the action plan distinguishes the culinary tourism market into three clusters:

(a). Primary: Travellers who main focus and intent is for a culinary tourism experience;

(b). Secondary: Travellers’ focus on culinary tourism is shared with another tourism motivator such as golf, shopping, visiting family and friends.Culinary tourism is part of their itinerary;

(c). Tertiary: Travellers’ itinerary or motivators do not include culinary tourism.Culinary tourism experience is impromptu or ad hoc to their original intent.

3. Culinary tourism and its connection to destination management and marketing

One of the main problems concerning culinary tourism marketing is that regional cuisines are not presented enough in promotional materials and communications tools which are used for tourism marketing. What is confirmed is that regional food increases the capability of sustainable tourism, reinforces the regional economy, supports the environmentally friendly infrastructure and is part of the originality of a destination.

This is why it is an important responsibility for destinations to examine the role of the regional food and beverages and use their potential to market the region effectively. This aspect leads to next important task, displaying and promoting culinary tourism in the right way to attract as much potential tourists as possible.If the destination decides on how to display and promote culinary tourism it can then be increasingly used as a branding instrument for the destination.

For countries who do not have well developed food tourism strategy it is important to learn from success stories from other countries and use benchmarking to compete on the global market.

Additional tasks which require cooperation of all stakeholders from the destination are:

(a). Empowerment of small and medium enterprises to set up food services which use products from the region;

(b). To create a feeling under the locals of being proud of their local food;

(c). The development of an official seal which labels regional produced food.

The national tourism and cuisine forum (CTC) was held in Halifax, Canada in 2001 to develop Canada as a culinary destination for the domestic and international market. The plan included several recommendations for the destination such as..

(a). Organizing an yearly event which presents the destination as an international quality wine region and gain the attention of high yield tourists;

(b). To improve the signature, information guides and maps of the existing wine routes;

(c). Establish sub-brands of the wine route brands.

4. Benefits and impacts of culinary tourism

Culinary tourism implicate various possible benefits to a destination. These are: a sustainable infrastructure where the supply of local and imported food is handled, local economy is supported, sustainable ways of tourism are encouraged and it strengthens the authenticity of a region. Entrepreneur and tourism organization need to work close together to meet the demands of the tourists.

When designing the food tourism strategies of a destination it need to be considered to which extent the tourists will have a negative influence on the destination and culture. Therefore, suitable planning, coordination and management are necessary to hamper the changing of social values and decreasing standards of the food production. Furthermore, precised inspections and balances must be in use to prevent the local community and environment from getting exploited. In this way the sustainability of culinary tourism is ensured which should not only been seen as an economy activity, but more as a cultural enrichment which contribute to the sustainability of a region.

5. Young adults’ travel behavior

UNWTO estimates that around “20% of the 940 million international tourists travelling the world in 2010 were young people. The WTO declares young traveller as a person between 16 and 25 years old who spends at least one night at the destination. The Youth Tourism Consortium of Canada rise the age to 30 years old.Tour operator like Contiki and agencies offer products for youth until the age of 35 years.

In addition to the age also the behaviour is seen as a characteristic of defining the young tourists.people may be older than the defined youth tourist but their behaviour may classify them as young tourists.

The Youth Tourism Consortium of Canada classify two classification youth tourists; the young adult tourists which travel with their school and youth group tourists (the holiday is arranged by the school, districts and groups) or non-school youth group tourists where the holiday is arranged by organised clubs like church group, sport team etc. or independent young adult tourists who travel on their own or in a small group and organise everything by their own. This specific group is likely to have a higher education, is between 15 and 30 years old, has experience in travelling, is skilled in using the internet, and chases the adventure and desire to meet other cultures.

Haeney and Robertson:-

They conducted a study in Australia for four years (1999-2002) to determine the trends and attributes of culinary tourists.Their first step was to split culinary tourists into international and domestic where domestic tourists were split again into day-visitors and overnight.

The result showed that domestic overnight culinary travellers spent more per night than non-culinary travellers (AUD$154 in comparison to AUD$130) and chose hotels as their preferred accommodation. The household income was higher on average than to non-culinary tourist and domestic overnight culinary tourist travelled mostly as two adults. The reason given most often for the holiday was “short break to escape the grind. Finally, domestic overnight culinary tourists took part in more cultural activities like markets and visit to vineyards and nightlife attractions than the total domestic overnight tourist.

The other segment, domestic culinary day tourist counted 36% of the total number of domestic day tourists. For 62% of the domestic culinary tourist was going away from home the main motivator of the holiday and 80% travelled with 3 to 5 people. The average expenses were higher than compared to international culinary tourists (AUD$110 to AUD$84). The domestic culinary tourists spend more in restaurants than the international culinary tourist (AUD$27 to AUD$16) .

The researchers Heaney and Robertson stated that culinary tourists can be clustered as mature and have on average a higher household income. A second significance which distinguishes international and domestic culinary travellers was the type of information media. The study showed that more than 50% of domestic culinary travellers depended on the internet to search for their travel information, while just 25% of international travellers used the internet for the same reason.

A deeper research into the consumer behaviour and a clear definition of a culinary tourist would give knowledge that the stakeholders and all other included parties in the travel context and process which would help to understand the culinary tourist and its needs and wants and to satisfy these.

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