The relationship between food neophobia, domain-specific innovativeness, and food festival revisit intentions

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of two personality traits (i.e. food neophobia (FN) and domain-specific innovativeness (DSI)) on revisit intentions of consumers in the food festival context. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a FN scale, DSI scale and food festival revisit intention scale to capture the study constructs. Furthermore, data were collected from 265 food festival attendees in the town of Udupi (State of Karnataka, India). Furthermore, the study adopted structural equating modeling to investigate the relationship between the three study constructs. Findings The findings of this study reveals that DSI seems to exercise significant positive influence on consumers revisit intentions for the food festival. On the contrary, FN seems to exercise a negative influence on consumers revisit intentions. This relation, however, is found to be non-significant. Practical implications The findings of this study are expected to help food festival event managers, organizers and practitioners outline and delineate marketing strategies so as to increase the revisit intentions of consumers for the food festivals. Originality/value FN and DSI have been extensively studied in the context of consumers’ food consumption and related behaviors. On the contrary, majority of the studies that relate to festival revisit intentions situate consumers’ experiential values and satisfaction with attributes of the festival itself (e.g. location, affordability, quality of food, infrastructure, venue ambiance, service quality, entertainment avenues, timing and duration and size of the festival) as key precursors to their revisit propensity. This research endeavor, however, attempts to investigate whether, notwithstanding other food festival attributes, personality traits of individuals (i.e. FN and DSI) exercise any influence on food festival revisit intentions.

The influence of neophobia and enduring food involvement on travelers' perceptions of wellbeing—Evidence from international visitors to Iran

“…Neophobia also affect tourists' motivations to experience local food at a t destination (e.g., Ji et al, 2016;Kim et al, 2009;Mak, Lumbers, Eves, & Chang, 2017;Payini, Ramaprasad, Mallya, Sanil, & Patwardhan, 2019).…”

“…For example, Kim et al (2010) suggested that neophilia is one of the most important psychological factors determining local food consumption at a destination. Neophobia also affect tourists' motivations to experience local food at a t destination (e.g., Ji et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2009; Mak, Lumbers, Eves, & Chang, 2017; Payini, Ramaprasad, Mallya, Sanil, & Patwardhan, 2019).…”

The application of enduring involvement theory in the development of a success model for a craft beer and food festival

“…Craft beer festivals are often considered fun and exciting, and as a result the nature of the event can leave a positive image of the event and destination in the minds of the consumer (Hixson et al, 2011;Lee et al, 2012;Zong and Zhao, 2013;Kim et al, 2017). When consumers have positive experiences at a craft beer festival, the annual festival receives benefits via positive word-of-mouth (WOM) and revisit intention (Payini et al, 2020). Additionally, the destination region or city also reaps the rewards of annual visitors (some repeat visitors) with the new spending from non-locals (tourists) in the community.…”

Digital tourism experience for tourist site revisit: an empirical view from Ghana

“…Similarly, the hospitality and tourism operators are applying innovation to improve food production especially during historic events and festivals to enhance revisit intentions (Payini et al, 2019) including other tourism outcomes (Stamboulis and Skayannis, 2003). However, innovation and tourist site revisit is driven by digital tourism experiences.…”