Temple Food As a Sustainable Tourism Attraction: Ecogastronomic Buddhist Heritage and Regional Development in South Korea

Abstract

This research explores Buddhist heritage-based tourism in South Korea. It examines temple food experiences provided in tandem with templestay programs that emphasize the Buddhist cooking tradition and share aspects of traditional Buddhist culture with visitors. Based primarily upon participant observation, this ecologically friendly form of tourism is described and the ongoing development of temple food programs is documented. A‘person-centric’ perception is adopted from two perspectives: an emphasis on the holistic well-being of individual visitors, and the importance of a specific person in the provision oftourism experiences. Rich description and narrative interpretation are used to explain the phenomenon and provide a foundation on which future research can be grounded.