Open research questions in Culinary Culture and Tourism

What the literature leaves open

• representation. This culinary expands the discussion of gastrodiplomacy by the role of higher education highlighting institutions cultural and communicators. It also contributes to the study of International Relations by showing that soft power is not only exercised through formal state institutions but can also be reproduced 179 | Bulletin of Social Studies and Community Development particularly students spaces as as food through students primarily through social, educational, and cultural practices at the local level. The underexplored position of students in gastrodiplomacy is evident in the tendency of previous studies to treat respondents, participants, or audiences, rather than as active cultural communicators. Luša and Jakešević the diplomacy examine perceptions of diplomats and students of the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Zagreb. However, their study focuses on the perception and recognition of food as a diplomatic tool rather than on student­led culinary practice. (Luša & Jakešević, 2017).

  Practicing Asian Gastrodiplomacy through UTY Growpath Expo #3: Culinary Culture, Soft Power, and Nation Branding · 2026 · DOI

• Future research should explore the implementation of these recommendations and assess their impact on the tourism industry in Alanya, particularly in terms of tourist satisfaction and local business performance. These challenges include insufficient awareness, lack of standardized preparation and presentation methods, and the lack of an issues, participants recommended the established marketing strategy.

  Evaluation of Geographically Indicated Local Products as Tourism Products: The Case of Gülüklü Soup · 2026 · DOI

• Therefore, future studies may consider evaluating coins alongside banknotes. As a result, it remains unknown whether past banknotes contained any gastronomic elements. Additionally, since the list of the most widely circulated and highest-valued currencies may vary from year to year, this study is limited to the currencies relevant to the current year.

  Banknotes and gastronomy · 2026 · DOI

• Based on the findings and conclusions of the study, the following recommendations are proposed to strengthen the showcasing of Cavite’s culinary heritage and enhance its positioning as a world-class tourist destination. 1. Create a strong collaboration between the local government and local agencies, such as the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), DTI’s export promotion arm in the Philippines, to promote the heritage cuisine of Cavite through flagship events, including IFEX (International Food Exhibition) Philippines and various international food shows. Incentivizing foreign visitors through TaxRebate. Exempting 12% VAT (Republic Act No. 12079) every time they purchase/dine/order Cavite’s heritage cuisine. 2. 3. Local restaurants should also receive financial incentives such as VAT exemptions on procurement costs for traditional ingredients sourced from local farmers and producers. Those who will qualify will be certified as “Cavite Heritage Ambassadors” to feature and promote heritage dishes, supported by targeted training on authentic preparation, cultural storytelling, and service quality. This approach strengthens restaurant participation in heritage promotion while improving customer experience and increasing demand for traditional cuisine. 4. Stakeholders from the government (LGUs, tourism offices, and the DOT), private sectors, and academe should jointly establish a unified culinary brand for Cavite that highlights key heritage dishes (Pansit Pusit, Bibingkoy, and Tilbok) and is consistently applied across all tourism materials and digital platforms. This initiative should be launched within a year through institutionalized province-wide culinary festivals. 5. Tourism infrastructure should focus on integrating heritage cuisine sites into formal gastronomic routes supported by digital mapping, clear signage, accessible facilities, and sustainable transport options. Establishing centralized culinary hubs will enhance visitor experience, improve accessibility, and encourage longer stays while ensuring inclusive and sustainable tourism development. 6. Further research may focus on evaluating the effectiveness of a specific culinary tourism program, festivals, and branding initiatives implemented by local government units and tourism stakeholders to determine their impact on destination image and tourist engagement. REFERENCES 1. ABS CBN News Digital. (2025, May 31). Plating the future: What’s next for PH food tourism? https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/2025/5/31/plating-the-future-what-s-next-for-ph-food-tourism-0914 2. Awad, A., & Alharthi, B. (2025). The role of digital marketing tools in promoting tourism: An applied study on online marketing 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. strategies. Innovative Marketing, 21(2), 14–26. https://doi.org/10.21511/im.21(2).2025.02 Benhaida, S., Safaa, L., & Perkumienė, D. (2024).

  SHOWCASING CAVITE’S CULINARY HERITAGE AS A WORLD-CLASS TOURIST DESTINATION · 2026 · DOI

• Food service establishments should enhance ambiance and presentation alongside food quality. 2. Operators should invest in sensory-focused innovations, such as lighting design and curated music. 3. Future research may explore qualitative insights into customer experiences. 4. Stakeholders may use the proposed framework for strategic planning and service improvement. REFERENCES 1) 2) 3) 4) (2022). Memorable dining experiences with five senses: Conceptualization and scale development. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 53, 198–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2022.11.001 (2023). Traditional restaurant managers’ use of sensory marketing to maintain customer satisfaction. Cogent Business & Management, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2023.2196788 (2024). Exploring the influence of multisensory experiences on consumer evaluation of cold tea. International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, 37, 101011. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijgfs.2024.101011 (2026). Beyond taste: A multisensory evaluation framework for fine dining takeout packaging design. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 134, 104556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2026.104556 5) Biswas, D., Szocs, C., Chacko, R., & Wansink, B. (2022). Shining light on atmospherics: How ambient light influences food choices. Journal of Marketing Research, 59(2), 1–17. 6) Chua, M. S., David, J. B., Rondina, C. Q., et al. (2023). Customer satisfaction towards immersive dining experiences: Assessing modern restaurant trends. APacCHRIE Conference Proceedings. 7) Ghazali, E. M., Mutum, D. S., & Cheah, J. J. (2025). Dining with robots: An integrated perspective on functional, emotional and relational dimensions of customer experience. Electronic Markets, 35, 57. 8) Harrington, R. J., Ottenbacher, M. C., & Fauser, S. (2023). QSR brand value: The role of experiential dining. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 110, 103436. 9) Kim, J., & Lennon, S. J. (2023). Effects of visual and auditory cues on dining satisfaction. Psychology & Marketing, 40(5), 1002–1015. 10) Kotler, P. (1973). Atmospherics as a Marketing Tool. Journal of Retailing. 11) Krishna, A. (2022). An integrative review of sensory marketing: Engaging the senses to affect perception, judgment, and behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 32(1), 1–25. IJSSHR, Volume 09 Issue 05 May 2026 www.ijsshr.in Page 4 “Beyond Taste: Multisensory Dining Experiences and Their Influence on Customer Satisfaction in Iloilo City’s Food Service Sector” 12) Lin, I. Y. (2022). The combined effect of music and lighting on customer experience. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 25(3), 275–292. 13) Magnini, V. P., & Kim, S. (2022).

  Beyond Taste: Multisensory Dining Experiences and Their Influence on Customer Satisfaction in Iloilo City's Food Service Sector · 2026 · DOI

• The questionnaire comprised 28 closed and 4 open questions grouped into four thematic blocks: frequency and forms of participation in food-related tourism activities, evaluation of authenticity and quality of culinary offerings, motivational drivers (cognitive, hedonic, social), and perceived influence of culinary experiences on overall destination image.

  Managing Culinary Heritage as an Economic Asset: Opportunities and Challenges for Emerging Tourist Destinations · 2025 · DOI

• TRANSLATING RECIPES FROM CHINESE INTO POLISH: POTENTIAL PROBLEMS AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
 Translation of culinary recipes has been a relatively understudied field and very little research has been done on the difficulties of translating recipes between Chinese and Polish.

  Tłumaczenie przepisów kulinarnych z chińskiego na polski · 2022 · DOI

• By emphasizing the centrality of a politics of indulgence to US ideological warfare, especially during the Green Revolution, we interrogate a key limitation of much critical food scholarship in its reductive equation of whiteness and power with food discipline and thinness.

  Navigating discipline and indulgence: the performance of contradiction on Instagram food posts in the Philippines · 2022 · DOI

• Data shows that the role of these stores is not limited to the commercialization of food products, but is also key in the promotion and dissemination of their physical, sensorial and symbolic features as well as of the material and immaterial characteristics of their places of origin at local, regional and national scales.

  “ <i>An incredible voyage through Portugal”</i> – the promotion of rural provenance foods by urban specialty shops · 2022 · DOI

• It will argue that food protests constitute a site from which to analyze particular transformations of the protest landscape of the time, such as the rise of consumer politics; it will also show that as transversal spaces of mobilization, food protests should be studied through the significance of their object.

  The Political Uses of Food Protests: Analyzing the 1910 Meat Boycott · 2022 · DOI

• Overall, the article makes a case for studying expertise ethnographically, by suggesting that the traditional approach to sensible skills, with its subjectivist bias and emphasis on physiological traits, is insufficient insofar as it neglects the communal space where flavor becomes an object of concern and appropriation.

  The chef and the flavorist: reflections on the value of sensory expertise · 2019 · DOI

• 9 However, while there is a growing body of literature on the role of communication technologies in the politics and social life of Central Asian nations,10 there are no studies on representations of Central Asian food and national identity on the internet.

  Nations of <i>Plov</i> and <i>Beshbarmak</i>: Central Asian Food and National Identity on the Internet · 2019 · DOI

• The study takes the point of view of three fields rarely studied together – food, music and political attitudes – employing a rich empirical research design utilizing both representative survey data ( N = 1,388) and qualitative interviews ( N = 28).

  Food, music and politics: The interweaving of culinary taste patterns, ‘highbrow’ musical taste and conservative attitudes in Finland · 2016 · DOI

• AbstractDespite a legion of studies on the omnivorous consumption patterns of the new middle class, the actual tastes of omnivores in particular social settings remain understudied.

  Food and Class Distinction at Israeli Weddings · 2013 · DOI

• In turn, this allows us to assume the existence of certain behavior and activities such as carnival forms of celebration similar to those in the Catholic environments in the late middle age Europe or much later, in the documented folk inheritance of the 19th and 20th century, which, in turn, could point out to new fields of research in poorly documented folklore of the middle age Serbia.

  Mesnice: Eating meat: A middle age name for winter big fat eating cycle · 2009 · DOI

• But by presenting these eighteen essays, which focus on such diverse questions as What did God really want us to eat?, and Were women powerful in the kitchen even though limited by the laws of kashrut?, the editors make us realize how much a multidisciplinary approach can aid us in exploring the relationship between food and Jewish law and practices in all of their complexity.

  Food and Judaism (review) · 2004 · DOI

• Structuralist and structural-functionalist analyses of spatial symbolism are limited by their static and formal nature, and this becomes apparent in the case of Xhosa beer-drink rituals once they are viewed as form of practice, in Bourdieu's sense of the word, rather than as manifestation of structural order (Bourdieu 1977, 1990).

  Domestic Space, Habitus, and Xhosa Ritual Beer-Drinking · 2004 · DOI

• As in other cultures, the pursuit of food pleasure on this level is lofty and limited to a dedicated fraternity; but, here in America, it has evidently disregarded all national bounds. A further study of the diet over a period of years might Qbcfoys encompass a little biography of each family.

  Food as communication in American culture · 1970 · DOI

• Theoretical Contributions: This research contributes to folklore, gastronomy studies, and cultural heritage literature by highlighting the symbolic meanings of food and rituals in Kazakh society, an area previously underexplored.

  Kazakh Culinary Culture: A Window into Tradition and Heritage · 2026 · DOI

• Previous contrastive studies of idiomatic expressions in Korean and Turkish have mostly focused on contrasting the meanings of idioms related to body parts or emotions, while there has been limited research on expressions associated with food culture.

  A Comparative Study of Idiomatic Expressions Related to Staple Foods in Korea and Türkiye: Rice and Bread · 2025 · DOI

• These two sets of food-related observations are then interpreted, analysed, and summarised before further suggestions for additional research on the topic are outlined.

  Exploring the Role of Food in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie · 2025 · DOI

• The study aims to reconstruct, through an appeal to food recipes that have not yet been fully studied, medieval ethnocultural contacts in the Mediterranean, which left a mark on the culture of Sicily.

  On the Issue of the Eastern Segment of the Alimentary Heritage of Sicily · 2024 · DOI

• While these policies largely absorb activities previously associated with “alternative” food systems, little is known about how they respond to critical food and race scholars who have noted that these food practices and spaces have historically marginalized immigrants.

  “New food cultures” and the absent food citizen: immigrants in urban food policy discourse · 2024 · DOI

• In spite of its numerous references to agriculture, cooking, and eating, it remains underexplored with respect to its capture of aspects of twentieth century foodways on the island of Ireland.

  Food and ethnographies of folk life: applying a theory of food as intangible cultural heritage to <i>Passing the Time in Ballymenone</i> · 2024 · DOI

• In the following, we first offer a review of current literature on national food identity and introduce Greenland, an Arctic nation moving toward independence from the kingdom of Denmark, as an interesting and understudied field of study.

  Food, national identity and tourism in Greenland · 2023 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Culinary Culture and Tourism

• Lifestyle and Social Class · European Sociological Review · 2003 · 89 citations
• Vegan food geographies and the rise of Big Veganism · Progress in Human Geography · 2022 · 84 citations
• Shaping more resilient and just food systems: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic · AMBIO · 2021 · 73 citations
• Thinking food like an East European: A critical reflection on the framing of food systems · Journal of Rural Studies · 2020 · 67 citations
• Something Old, Something New: Exploring the Interaction between Ritual and Advertising · Journal of Advertising · 1996 · 65 citations
• Acquisition of Cooking Skills and Associations With Healthy Eating in Swiss Adults · Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior · 2020 · 63 citations
• ‘We and our stories’: constructing food experiences in a UNESCO gastronomy city · Tourism Geographies · 2021 · 61 citations
• Menu design approaches to promote sustainable vegetarian food choices when dining out · Journal of Environmental Psychology · 2021 · 56 citations
• History to eat. The foodification of the historic centre of Florence · Cities · 2020 · 55 citations
• Understanding food experience in sharing-economy platforms: insights from Eatwith and Withlocals · Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change · 2021 · 55 citations

Most recent work

• RCC Perspectives, Vol. 1 (2015): Think Global, Eat Local: Exploring Foodways · ERef Bayreuth (University of Bayreuth) · 2026
• The beef and the bare life – Ambedkar’s Broken Man, Agamben’s Homo Sacer, and the biopolitics of beef and dietary consumption · National Identities · 2026
• Visual topics in “Perú, Mucho Gusto” TikTok: a comparative LLM-guided video analysis of official and user-generated content · International Journal of Event and Festival Management · 2026
• Personification and amplification of inequality: Mexico City’s gastronomic scene through Instagram foodies · Food Culture & Society · 2026
• Gastronomic pathways to progress: Local food consumption and the making of developmental futures · Community Development · 2026
• Book Review: Culinary Medicine CaseyCGoingSMcCulloughLHingleM, eds. Culinary Medicine. University of Arizona; 2024:691. · American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine · 2026
• Indigenous Representations and Perceptions in Cookbooks: A Case Study of Wilson Library's North Carolina Collection · UNC Libraries · 2026
• Applied Methodology for the Reengineering and Standardization of Manual Culinary Processes: From the Chef-Driven Kitchen to a High-Load Chain Format (the Laghman Express Model) · Universal Library of Multidisciplinary · 2026
• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND NLP ON REDDIT: UNSUPERVISED DETECTION OF FOOD TRENDS AND HEALTHY EATING PATTERNS · International Journal on Cybernetics & Informatics · 2026
• Enhancing the nation’s culinary brand: exploring the branding of Turkish cuisine with the stimulus–organism–response theory · International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management · 2026

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