Guest editorial: Creating, managing and marketing gastronomy experiences in hospitality and tourism

Gastronomy experiences are increasingly becoming major drivers of tourism flows worldwide as they allow travelers to get more familiar with the local culture and traditions of the places visited. As such, gastronomy experiences have propelled gastronomic hospitality and tourism experiences which are attracting the attention of a high and expanding number of hospitality and tourism firms and fostering regional tourism development. Gastronomic tourism experiences entail the visit to food-themed events and festivals, primary and secondary producers, cooking classes, restaurants and places for which food tasting are the prevailing travel motivating factors. Research on this socio-cultural and economic phenomenon has been consolidating over more than three decades as an area of tourism research, often named interchangeably “gastronomic tourism”, “culinary tourism” and “food tourism”. The purpose of this special issue is to broaden and deepen our knowledge of gastronomy experiences in hospitality and tourism, from a managerial perspective, in a rapidly changing world.