Opportunities To Capitalize The Resources Of Gastronomic Tourism

This paper presents some opportunities for developing a new way to capitalize local resources through gastronomic tourism. Gastronomic tourism products incorporate environmental values, landscape, parts of the local culture, traditions, local cuisine, traditional costumes, local food and the rituals associated with the gastronomic experience -how foods are served and presented, ingredients, preparation methods. Identification of the culinary landscape tourist destination is one of the challenges of creating tourism products, in which an important role have the agritourist pensions from the five micro regions of Sibiu County. Gastronomy plays an indispensable role in promoting tourism at a regional and local level. Therefore, the creation of gastronomic tourism products is seen as a priority tourist destination that can offer experiences in this regard. Motivations of choosing tourist destination "Sibiu - European gastronomic region" are related to cultural and natural attractions, special events and festivals, food experiences in each micro-region, gourmet connections, social interaction and emotional, but also other opportunities for recreation and entertainment. In order to organize and promote the gastronomic tourism in the rural areas of Sibiu, it is necessary the establishment of partnerships among tourism providers (households / farmers in the rural community), local authorities, other economic providers of tourism related services, travel agencies etc. Only by working together they can solve the major problems of development and promotion of this form of tourism in the context of socio-economic development of rural communities, with beneficial effects on local tourism. Without a general infrastructure development and tourist facilities, one cannot speak of a competitive tourism in either micro-regions or localities.

Keywords

Gastronomy, tourism, culture, sustainable development, environment values

JEL Classification

L83, Q10

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