Gastronomic tourism experiences of Goa: tapping the potential of Goan cuisine as a destination attraction.

Abstract

Goa has been well renowned for its serene beaches, sunset views, vibrant nightlife, and the easy-going nature that the entire State exudes. Though divided broadly into North Goa and South Goa, this much-sought tourist destination still has plenty of reflections of its rich Portuguese influence, right from its architecture, language, style of dressing, and of course, its food.Every tourist, while planning a trip, be it for business or leisure, indeed also looks into the culinary aspect to further enhance their travel experience.Goan food has an amalgamation of simple flavors consisting of its staple food of unpolished rice and fish curry; its solid Portuguese influence adds to itsuniquely complexcombination of flavors such as sweetness, spice, salt, and sourness.There are many paths that Goan cuisine has traversed and has tremendous potentialof further increasing the tourism potential and acting as a critical player in the State's economic status in a delectable manner. This article aims at presenting a research link between tourism and gastronomy, which seeks to determine the impulses, satisfactions levels, profile, and purchasing power of tourists who visit Goa, with a motivation to understand its cultural heritage, in this case, gastronomy.This study is descriptive in nature in which the data were collected from the 190 tourists who recently visited Goa. A structured questionnairecontaining five-point interval scalewas used for data collection.Statistical tools such as mean and one sample t-test were applied to analyze the data. The results revealed that, of late, gastronomy also plays a significant role in the way touristsapproach andexperience a destination.