Tourists' Intentions To Visit A Culinary Destination:the Influence Of Visual Attention

Culinary tourism is a significant theme for recent research in tourism,and it is an essential economic trend of the tourism industry.While the idea of culinary tourism has been around for decades,it has received limited research attention,especially regarding the culinary destination image.Differing from previous studies,this study proposes a culinary destination image that is rooted in the concept of culture and experience.Investigating the formation of a destination image implies isolating the pre-travel stage and understanding how this mental concept is formed.Being tourism uniquely visual and being the pre-travel phase a critical step in the development of the destination image and accordingly the tourists'intentions,it is imperative to deepen the knowledge we have about visual attention and photo stimuli.The focus of this study is to investigate the dimensions which constitute a culinary destination image through an innovative method:eye-tracking.Eye-tracking data can explain which elements of the image are visually prominent.Another focus of this study is to determine the relationship between the culinary destination image and tourists' intentions.This research also sought to understand how ethnicity influences visual attention and impact the development of a destination image.In order to reach this purpose,this study uses an innovate approach to research:eye-tracking.The sample consisted of 30 participants with two different cultural backgrounds:15 Chinese and 15 Westerners.Data of the eye-movements give the researcher the possibility to deploy photo stimuli and analyze the visual attention directed to the pictures.The pictures selected for the experiment portrayed Italy as a culinary destination.An analysis of variance was conducted to investigate the four factors through the eye-tracking data.This revealed that food,dining,food-related activity and culture all constitute a culinary destination image.However,Chinese participants seem to be more attracted to the cultural roots of culinary tourism.The visual analysis of the heat maps and scan paths along with the analysis of variance confirmed that Chinese and Western participants have different attentional and scanning patterns.A correlation between cyc-tracking data and a survey through a regression analysis affirms the positive relationship between culinary destination image and tourists' intentions.The findings of this research provide notable practical implications for marketers and the tourism industry regarding tourism visuals.The theoretical implications include the introduction of the cultural factor in the concept of culinary tourism,the pre-travel stage,and new methods of research.