Exploring the Behavioral Intentions of Food Tourists Who Visit Crete

Abstract

Food tourism has been growing globally in recent years. Food tourism is considered as special interest tourism, attracting tourists who have a great interest in food. Tourists spend a significant percentage of their budget on the purchase of local food products and related food activities, contributing to the sustainable development of the touristic destination in the process. This survey took place in Crete, Greece, throughout the touristic period of 2021, and 4268 valid questionnaires were completed by international tourists. For the data analysis, the Structural Equation Model and an extended Theory of Planned Behavior Model, based on subjective norms, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and satisfaction, were used to better understand the consumers’ intentions to revisit and recommend the region of Crete. The outcomes of the research pinpointed that the perceived quality and perceived value of local foods positively influenced satisfaction, which, in turn, evoked favorable intentions to revisit and recommend Crete as a touristic destination. Moreover, while satisfaction, attitude, and subjective norms seem to be the most significant drivers affecting positive behavioral intentions, perceived behavior control seems to have had no significant impact. The implications and limitations of the survey, as well as future recommendations, are also discussed.

A Sustainable Analysis Regarding the Impact of Tourism on Food Preferences in European Capitals

“…Moreover, it is worth noting that despite the tourists' consideration of reviews in their restaurant selection process, they fail to establish a correlation between the pricing and the reviews [44,45].…”

“…However, food tourism growth is accompanied by several obstacles and possibilities, including the imperative lying in guaranteeing the sustainability of food tourism while concurrently maximising its positive impact on local communities and also the inclusion of a diverse range of food choices to accommodate various dietary requirements and personal preferences [21,45].…”

“…Several prospects exist in the development of food tourism: the process of creating novel and inventive culinary tourism offerings and encounters, advocating for the expansion of culinary tourism into untapped markets, examining the interconnections between food tourism and several other tourist goods and attractions, and the use of food tourism as a means to facilitate sustainable development [44,45].…”

The effect of food tourism experiences on tourists' subjective well-being

“…Enjoyment of food tourism consumption experiences has a significant impact on satisfaction, life domain outcomes, life satisfaction, and autobiographical memories of tourism [ 44 ]. The perceived quality and perceived value of local food have a positive impact on satisfaction, which in turn evokes food tourists' revisit and recommendation intentions [ 75 , 82 ], and these post-food tourism behavioral intentions are crucial for tourism destination development [ 81 ].…”

The Effect of Financial Literacy, Financial Technology and Income on Small and Medium Entreprise Financial Behaviour

“…The underlying intentions of that behavior determine the apparent behaviour of a person. Intention will show how much a person wants to do something or behavior (Angelakis et al, 2023). In addition to intention, convenience and subjective norms are also the cause of the creation of a behaviour (Bananuka et al, 2019;Bouarar & Mouloudj, 2021;Lou et al, 2022;Raza et al, 2019).…”