The Rise of The Culinary Tourism

Eight million international tourists landed in Spain in 2016 with a particular gastronomic interest. The success of some companies and institutions in consolidating the most diverse tourist products linked to gastronomy has contributed significantly to reinforce the value of the country’s brand. This flood of culinary explorers, rather than of simple gourmets, choose Spain as their destination, hyperbolizing the Extremadura meadows where the Iberian pigs are raised and which are the best sites to organize several routes for palate exaltation. They love their holidays in Spain because of its addiction to wine, convinced to visit again the traditional wineries or those cellars with more modern architecture. They are also tempted to discover the olive oil mills, the jamón dryers and the meatpacking plants. Other inexpensive extras should not be overlooked in the gastronomic experience, such as the saffron fair in Consuegra (La Mancha), among some other traditional festivals in the rural areas, such as cheese competitions, fish auctions and almadrabas (tuna traps) on the Cádiz coast are must-sees. People in America have been hearing about all those experiences and it has incited a Culinary Spanish Armada.

The 76 million international visitors who chose Spain as their holiday destination set a new record in 2016. If we count the total of national and international tourists, 2017 will probably close with more than 116 million people. Spain also heads the world table of summer destinations, counting hotels and tourists. This balance of supply and demand has seen increased spending per person to 1,023 euros in the last financial year. Much of this expenditure is produced today by major European markets, starting with the British Isles, continuing through Germany and then France. The potential of demand for Spain from the United States and China is assumed.

However, if the record number of tourists has not ceased to increase in recent years, spending per capita remains far below what other, less massive, but higher-quality destinations. Italy is a good example of this, as well as New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland. Spain does not play a role in the luxury industry because it can not compete in a segment that requires a more exclusive and fashionable environment with high-class services more oriented toward the glittery international jet set. Perhaps in the next ten years, Ibiza will become this kind of destination thanks to the Matutes family, who are fostering the complete renovation of the old hotels on this island. Ibiza is where the real intangibles of luxury, such as tranquility, silence or isolation, are being paid for today. And apparently, they don't cost as much as we thought!

But Spain is not a country where people can seek silence or isolation while Spanish culture is expansive, open, cheerful, hedonistic and humanistic. Unquestionably, it is more social and convivial than other regions in the world. From the perspective of receptive tourism, it does not seem advisable to increase spending, since if we analyze this fact from the issuing side, we can not see a demand for more quality facilities, better hotels or white glove services. Foreign tourists in Spain are looking for low priced mid-range hotels, eating well and, of course, enjoying the good weather at the beach. It is the motley motto of the sun-sea-sex that characterized the tourist boom of Spain 60 years ago.

This recipe for sun and beach tourism is the reason why it's hard to break away from seasonality. For several decades, public and private entities linked to tourism in Spain have wondered how to overcome the seasonal ceiling or, at least, how to extend the resort closures, thus avoiding the unemployment of many thousands of workers. One of the most promising routes has been strengthening the image of Spain as an essential food destination. The media leadership of the Michelin stars has contributed to the achievement of this goal. In parallel, some of its outstanding restaurants are always seen at the highest positions of The World's 50 Best Restaurants roster. But this would not have been possible without the overflowing talent of chef Ferran Adrià, probably the most influential person in world cuisine of the last century.

To these factors aforementioned we must add the constellation of eateries along the roads and in the smaller towns with an irresistible quality, derived from the growing attachment of the Spaniards to their gastronomy. Furthermore, the international tourist demand has recognized Spain at the heart of a healthy diet, such as the Mediterranean, due to the culinary concerns in almost all its households. Recently, the World Economic Forum put Spain on the worldwide throne of the Lifestyle category. It should also be added, if the truth be told, those international tourists and even the Spanish themselves appreciate the public extraordinary infrastructure and hospital care system of the country, which are even higher than usual in the more developed OECD countries.

What is the determining factor of competitiveness in the Spanish tourist success?

Undoubtedly, it is the cost structure of Spanish companies. While the current management model in the United States sets the focus on revenue (distribution), the Spanish model emphasizes the importance of the operation through the refinement of productive costs (operation). Let's acknowledge that most of the major players in the Spanish tourist scene have not oriented their investments toward an industry of a higher level, but toward the mass tourism with its unbeatable low-cost pattern. Except in very specific areas, Spain has been developing a genuine low-cost model since 1950. The attempts to increase the quality of tourist infrastructure, such as that of the Meliá hotel chain on Playa de Magaluf (Mallorca), have been delayed again and again not by the requirements of investors, but by this low-cost culture just mentioned. The intention of Meliá is praiseworthy, although more similar initiatives are needed that accompany and generate a different tourism ecosystem.

Therefore, the important thing now is to maintain the balance between the low cost culture and profit model and to bet on strategic areas where a rational 'sponge' can be produced in the sector with both the industry needs and the involvement of public institutions. And analyze how this attempt evolves over the next 10 or 15 years.

Meanwhile, gastronomy has assumed a greater responsibility in the country's tourist expansion, in the increase of the quality of the products and destinations, as well as in the account of results of all the companies affected by the phenomenology of the tourism. The culinary demand is growing all over the world, reinforced by the trend toward the incessant search for local products which characterize a particular idiosyncrasy of the sites visited. This contributes to the sustainability in conjunction with the development of the local economies. Gastronomic festivals, every day more in vogue in the whole world, generate an exponential increase in the revenues because of tourism factors. Aside from the local exploration, the universality of tourism and the growing education of citizens contributes to the tendency of our times toward globalization, essentially when it occurs as a result of innovation. And the price... It has never been so cheap to eat, while, at the same time, the culinary experience has never been so expensive.

And while gastronomy suggests the enhancement of rural tourism, the truth is that the spearhead of food expression is the pleiad of restaurants which benefit from a high occupancy in urban destinations. Cities like Tokyo, New York, Barcelona, Vancouver, Las Vegas, Lyon, Brussels or Hanoi have become cool thanks to their culinary lures, often favored by the right marketing strategy and a privileged position in gastronomic guides like the traditional Michelin.

As the UNWTO noted at the conclusions of the Second World Gastronomic Tourism Forum, ?Social and economic changes have led to a greater relevance to the incorporation of environmental, cultural, ethical, and health-related concerns, as well as lifestyle, and food tourism must include criteria of responsibility, solidarity, and sustainability?. More precisely, food tourism is ?any tourism experience in which one learns about, appreciates, and/or consumes food and drinks that reflect the local, regional or national cuisine, heritage, and culture?, the nonprofit organization Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance (OCTA) has claimed recently.

In this horizon of gastronomic tourism expansion, the agro-food industry and, in particular, the producers who introduce innovations in the recipe book should play a greater role. The growing interest of cooks for the discovery of good producers and the implication of these in producing specifically for the tables of their best restaurants allow us to predict that the current system of making chefs into stars will give way to another system for awarding growers, food technologists, and nutrition scientists.

The aforementioned Second World Forum of Gastronomic Tourism, celebrated in Lima (Peru) in 2016, already pointed out ?the valorization of the raw material and the different elements of the extensive chain of value in the experience of gastronomic tourism, such as agriculture, fisheries, livestock, market culture and distribution, as well as elements linked to traditional cuisine?. Traditional crops and historical roots are part of this precept. Also, the inclusion of local communities in this exercise is a strategic requirement.

Alongside this, the trends driven by the aspirational social and playful context of good eating that entices the new generations should be considered by the tourism industry as a future contribution to the experience of the trip. The so-called foodsurfing or social dining has given rise to new players who, as in the subsector of accommodations, operate with digital apps as technological connectors. These platforms introduce a mechanism of trust between an aficionado and his guests, either if the dinner is made at the cook’s abode or the guests’ home. Into the bargain, this reliability allows the establishment of personal relationships between residents and tourists in the city, uncorks the prevalent tourist services, and reinforces the local economy through the extra income fed by those experiential practices.

Thanks to the technological impulse of the Internet, cuisine has transcended its closed and professional catering tradition to a new street scenario dominated by the unpredictability of its apparitions and its ephemeral character, often organized by amateur cooks, into the limits of the current legality. They are the pop-up kitchens or the so-called anti-restaurants, put up in pickup trucks parked curbside. Sometimes, they are a real luxury guerrilla cuisine for the senses. More than 8,000 food-trucks offer daily meals on the streets of New York, and even Tourism Board organizes with increasing success some guided tours for the most prized trucks and carts in the city.

There are also clandestine restaurants that open unexpectedly in garages or private apartments and have a duration no longer than a few days or, often, a few hours. Their diffusion is done by WhatsApp or, directly, by word-of-mouth, with the prices unknown at the time of making the reservation. Other times, this new style of eating venues is the replica of the humble street stalls that populate the cities of the least developed countries. Yes, with a touch of glamor desired by both the resident and the visitor.

However, none of these is as glamorous as Snowlicious, the latest gastronomic tourist novelty introduced by the rejuvenated winter resort of Val Thorens, in the French Alps. It is a mobile kitchen on board a Ratrack grooming machine that offers fancy food, not at the foot, but in full descent of the ski slopes.

Another trend of enormous effect in the tourism industry is the diffusion of the culinary destination through social networks, and in particular, Instagram, which gets its maximum virality in the snapshots of plates and artistic food assemblages. This phenomenon has introduced bloggers and amateur photographers into an ecosystem previously monopolized by journalists and food critics. Parallel to this phenomenon has been the incursion of TV reality shows in the culinary sector, where practically all countries with gastronomic prominence have their own version of Master Chef.

Likewise, the increasing interest of brands and independent hotels for high cuisine has oxygenated the bunker in which the hospitality industry has remained closed against the avant-garde movements, the opening of its dining rooms to the street and the introduction of new technologies in management. Yes, the future of Food & Beverage departments is expected to be more flexible and versatile than it was in the past. It is currently quite more personalized and technological, more oriented to welcome and gathering wider knowledge of the guest. That means 24/7/365 food management. Because a global and connected world combines different guests’ schedules, the hotel service has to reckon all those chronological gaps to tear down the structural monolithism of the breakfast, lunch, and dinner time.

This openness trend will surely blow in the same direction as the winds of the sharing economy, which will probably lead to a new hospitality industry fermented under multimodal accommodation, where hotel rooms, private homes, and collaborative restaurants break up the physical business unit to provide a more appropriate response to the needs of travelers. The future of tourism is going to be multimodal and multi-destination, indeed.

Fernando Gallardo |