Abstract
The Roles of Gastronomy Festivals on Travel Motivation and Value Perception: A Study on Domestic Tourists Attending GastroAntep
Gastronomy-themed festivals provide destinations with some advantages in publicizing and marketing gastronomic experiences. The way to effectively benefit from these advantages is to know the factors that shape tourists' behaviors and to carry out the management of the processes of festivals by taking these experiences into account. This research was conducted in Gaziantep to determine the role of gastronomy festivals on travel motivation and value perception. For the objective of the study, a form with semi-structured and open-ended questions was applied to 88 domestic tourists aged 18 and over who participated in the Gaziantep 5th International Gastronomy Festival. As a result of the analysis made on 79 usable forms, gastronomy festivals contain 8 themes that shape travel motivation: organic foods, local foods, local beverages, geographically marked products, street foods, the desire to know different cultures, innovative applications, and famous chefs; on the other hand, it has been concluded that gastronomy festivals include many factors that shape the value perception, such as taste, diversity, attractiveness, difference, naturalness, etc.
Keywords
Festival, Gastronomy Festival, Travel Motivation, Value Perception, Gastrofest.
