Abstract
Celebrating the adverse tradition culture has been growing slowly over the past decades. People never wanted to relate to the past tradition. But the interest to emulate this tradition is picking up in the recent generation, some of the hotel and hospitality destinations have made it real through; using local food producers to provide gastronomic foods, engaging the gastronomic tourist in celebrations of this food events, setting reservations and warm welcome to high class people and celebrities and interactions between international individuals. Margaret River Gourmet escape located in south Australia has been the leading in the events such events especially in food and wines events with its beautiful sceneries nutritional foods (Mason, M. 2009).
The producers also have benefited from this events. The chance to offer the best of their services to the gastronomic tourists through cooking, serving, motivating, educating on the cultural origin of such events and teaching them on different techniques of cooking. Competitions also makes the tourists comfortable to participate and enjoy. Through all this the producers earn a living and they get to expose their talents and services to the world. The outcome weight of these elements about the origin of the food and wine tradition in relation to producers is impactful to consumers who are the gastronomic tourists (Marcoz, Melewar, & Dennis, 2016). The purpose of this content is to illustrate more on the growth and development of food and wine events, strategies used in this events to attract more tourists and the emerging consumer trend in Margaret River Gourmet escape as the leading gastronomic tourist destination.
Margaret River Gourmet escape
Margaret River Gourmet escape is an annually visited tourism destination rich in food and wine for both local and international tourists. It offers many events but the main event is the food and wine events that is interesting to people who love food and wines. Other events like feasting, party with friends, harvest tours and gourmet village resort which offers premium food and wines have made this destination to grow greatly. Advancements and addition of new events every year make the tourist yearn for the yearly visit because they would be eager to know the new events and even getting interested to participate in them.
International food producers have greatly enhanced the growth of the Margaret River escape. New producers joining in every year makes different varieties of foods every season thus making it new every year by delivering the high level services to produce the best food and wines thus making it more competitive (O’Neill & Charters 2000). The likes of Nigella Lawson who is well known as the queen of the kitchen who joined the organization in making the 2016 season visit to develop more and attract more international tourists. The seasonal visit also have made great impact in the growth of the Margaret River escape since it is a one chance celebration that one cannot miss to make a visit in a year.
The population of the tourists visiting Margaret River escape has been growing bigger every year. Additional of the new tourist from within and internationally is due to the strategies used in ensuring the success of the annual visit. These strategies that came out is that, the organization have good collaboration with the local producers and the government. Motivation of the workers in the organization is also another strategy used. The conduct of welcoming the tourists is warmly and the educational motivation to the tourists during the visit as they enjoy the foods and wines (Horng, & Tsai, 2012). These strategies among annual media reports have made this organization to attract more tourists to this site.
Various producers around the organization which are primary factors to food and wine events play important role (Hall & Mitchell, 2007). These include boutique beverages, tourism industry, fishing industry which have been able to provide their goods and services to this resort are key pillars. These goods and services are used to meet the diverse customer needs of the tourists by making all what the tourists need available to them as they enjoy the stay. Locally produced wine from grapes grown in the fertile soils of Margaret River which is of high quality which makes the tourists feel the taste of locally brewed wine has impacted the attraction of international tourists. Fun engaging activities like the harvest tour where the tourists are exposed to the outdoor activities makes tourists love the place more.
Though the strategies opted more to the success of the tourist attraction, some of the issues like the external environment, economic and political issues have greatly impacted the food and wine events in Margaret River escape both positively and negatively. According to (Jones, R. 2010) the adaptive environmental climate change has impacted the economy positively and the project of bringing more tourists to the area.
Economically the local people have benefited a lot from this project since they can readily sell their produce without looking for market elsewhere. It has encouraged the local farmers to engage more in farming and fishing to satisfy the consumer need of the gourmet. But due to the fact that the festive event happens once in a year, the gourmet does not offer consistent market to the local farmers. Though the provision of more quality produce from external environment lowers the flow of the local produce, the local farmers do not benefit much thus it affects them more negatively than positively. Also if the export price is higher, local farmers would prefer to sell their products to export companies than the local gourmet. This would affect the gastronomy of the gourmet greatly. This has also brought competition in consumption with the economy of India (Taylor, S & Taylor, M. 2017).
Political instability is another major problem to the gourmet due to its fluctuation of the prices hence sometimes difficult to fetch products from local farmers (Hatten, 2015). Riots and governmental agendas that may cause insecurity in the area affects the international tourists from visiting the area hence causing a lot of loses.
Emerging consumer trend
Some of the emerging consumer trends at Margaret River escape are:
Promotion of discount of up to twenty percent which has allowed the tourists to save money and encourage them to visit the place frequently every year. This promotion has marked a significant growth of the tourist visiting the area. Statistic shows that up to five percent increase in the number of tourism from 2016 has been witnessed. Thus tourists appreciate the economic friendly discount by turning up in increasing numbers every year.
Production of locally brewed wine from the fertile soils of Margaret River with cool climate that favor the healthy growth of grapes has significantly impacted the growth of the organization. By tourists consuming the locally brewed wine in place, they feel the natural taste of the local wine. Also the foods like the fish from the fresh water river and other sea animals in the area that supplement the food produced in the place has greatly impacted the growth
Strategies used to promote gastronomic tourism
According to (Harrington & Ottenbacher, 2010), though there are some limitation in in promotion of gastronomic tourism, strategies set are to overcome .These include engaging the tourists in the activities taking place in the gourmet in practical way like teaching them on how to cook gastronomic food to make it more fun and enjoyable. Use of traditional tools and utensils in cooking and consumption has greatly promoted the gastronomic tourism. It is strategy of making them participate in the activities rather than just eating and experience the learning from professional cheffs.
Sharing the history of the tradition of the foods and wines produced in the area. This would provide heritage in promoting products from farms to meet consumer needs (Besseiere, 2010). It is an educative strategy also for impacting them with the knowledge of the origin of the foods and wine they are consuming in the place. It also enhances interaction that bring the people together from different parts of the world to make them feel the need to celebrate the tradition. In addition cultural practices are also emulated by the tourists in return, hence the urge for them to visit the place annually to celebrate the culture. This impacts the growth of the gastronomic tourism.
Sharing food experience on the social media platforms and website. By uploading the locally available foods in the internet it has been able to reach millions of targeted tourists across the world. The travelers seeking to explore more sight would easily see and make contributions to travel (Wang, Kirillova & Lehto, 2017). Thus it give the potential tourists the urge and need to visit the gourmet. It has greatly increased the market of available local food through the advertisement of the food offered in Margaret River gourmet.
In conclusion the Margaret River resort is greatly growing, not only in tourism events but also the motivational impact in which the food events give to the producers and the tourists who are also the local farmers (Mason & Paggiaro, 2009). According to (Higgins-Desbiolles, F. 2017), visiting such area as gastronomic tourists with the consumption of food from different ethical groups have helped in breaking the barrier of colonization due to interaction.
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