Culinary and Destination Experiences of International Tourists in Bandung and Solo: The Effect on Behavioral Intentions

Abstract

Culinary tourism allows tourists to be exposed to new cultures by enjoying the local food as well as the local people hospitality. Previous studies have confirmed the linkages among experience quality, tourist satisfaction, destination experience and behavioral intentions in the context of culinary tourism. Hence, there has been lack of studies on the linkages among the variables specifically on the local Indonesian food. This study was intended to investigate the effect of culinary experience quality on behavioral intentions with culinary experience satisfaction and destination experience satisfaction as the mediating variables. There were 194 international tourists participating in the survey both in Bandung and Solo. The result showed that culinary experience quality positively and significantly influenced both culinary experience satisfaction and destination experience satisfaction. Moreover, it was also found that culinary experience satisfaction had a positive and significant effect on destination experience satisfaction. Further, it was also confirmed that destination experience satisfaction had a positive and significant effect on behavioral intentions. However, culinary experience satisfaction did not have a significant effect on behavioral intentions.

Culinary travel experiences, quality of life and loyalty

“…Within the specific context of culinary tourism, the number of works that test the quality of culinary experiences and its impacts on outcome variables are still scarce. Widjaja et al (2018) show some initial insights confirming that EXPQ directly and positively influences the satisfaction with culinary experiences, which, in turn, has a positive effect on future behaviours. Similarly, few works recently published, stress the role of food-based activities lived on holidays as extraordinary experiences (Goolaup et al , 2017) and effective memory enhancers (Stone et al , 2019; Tsai, 2016; Williams et al , 2018).…”

“…The empirical test of the structural model confirmed the hypothesised relationships and showed a good predictive power of the model. The results of the research lead to the following conclusions and practical implications for the sector: EXPQ is a central element in delivering MEM (Pizam, 2010) and satisfaction (Widjaja et al , 2018) to culinary tourists who look for experiential values. In addition, this research confirms an original connection linking EXPQ and QOL. The assessment of EXPQ lived depends on how surprising, funny, engaging and educative the proposed activities are (Kao et al , 2008; Cole and Scott, 2004).…”

“…EXPQ is a central element in delivering MEM (Pizam, 2010) and satisfaction (Widjaja et al , 2018) to culinary tourists who look for experiential values. In addition, this research confirms an original connection linking EXPQ and QOL.…”

“…The contact with local food and culinary cultures while on holidays has a determining role in the way travellers experience a destination (Kivela and Crotts, 2006; Wijaya et al , 2017) and generates pleasant memories (Stone et al , 2017). If travelling experiences are perceived as memorable, the positive emotions associated with them last beyond the journey, impact the perceptions of personal QOL (Dolnicar et al , 2013) and, in turn, drive positive future behaviours (Björk and Kauppinen-Räisänen, 2016; Widjaja et al , 2018).…”