Food Tourism and Gastronomy Strategy & Action Plan

1. Strategic context

Describe why you are developing a food tourism and gastronomy strategy now. Consider the current destination strategy, visitor economy objectives, local food and agricultural policy, cultural and heritage strategies, sustainability commitments, rural and urban development priorities, business development needs, seasonality, resident and community interests, and relevant national or regional tourism strategies.

Our strategic context

[Complete]

The main problem or opportunity this strategy should address

[Complete]

What is already decided, and what is genuinely open

Naming this early prevents a consultation that raises expectations the strategy cannot meet.

[Complete]

2. Define food tourism for our destination

Agree what food tourism means locally before you plan anything. Avoid defining gastronomy only through restaurants: consider the complete visitor relationship with food and place.

This can include restaurants and cafés, traditional dishes, contemporary food culture, local ingredients, farms and producers, fisheries, markets and food halls, bakeries, breweries and distilleries, food tours, cooking experiences, festivals and events, food heritage, Indigenous or traditional food knowledge where relevant, food-related landscapes, seasonal food traditions, food education and community food culture.

Our working definition of food tourism

[Complete]

What we are deliberately excluding, and why

[Complete]

3. Destination food identity

Ask one question: what can visitors eat, drink, learn or experience here that meaningfully connects them with this place?

People

Identify the chefs, producers, growers, fishers, entrepreneurs and community members who contribute to the destination's food identity.

[Complete]

4. Food tourism asset map

Build an inventory of what already exists. Copy this block once per asset. Recording it as a block rather than a wide table keeps it readable on a phone, which matters when the mapping is done on site rather than at a desk.

Not every food producer needs to become a tourism business. Participation should match the capacity and the interest of the producer, and asking otherwise damages the relationship.

5. Visitor perspective

Base this on evidence rather than assumption. Draw on existing visitor research, surveys, reviews, search behaviour, social media, restaurant and attraction data, tour operator feedback, business interviews, visitor information enquiries and national tourism research.

What we do not know, and how we will find out

[Complete]

6. Stakeholder and food ecosystem analysis

Map the organisations and people required to deliver this. Consider the DMO, municipality or regional authority, tourism businesses, restaurants, producers, farmers, fisheries, food processors, retail, markets, event organisers, universities and vocational education, cultural organisations, chambers of commerce, business development organisations, transport providers and local communities.

7. Current experience assessment

Walk the visitor journey and mark where it breaks. At each stage ask: can visitors discover our food experiences, understand what is distinctive, find reliable information, book, and reach the experience? Is information available in the right languages? Are dietary requirements and accessibility communicated clearly? Does the experience connect food with place? Can a visitor easily find a related experience next?

Key strengths

[Complete]

Key gaps

[Complete]

8. Competitive and comparator analysis

Choose destinations that offer useful learning, not the most famous ones. For each, ask what their food proposition is, what experiences support it, how they organise collaboration, how they communicate their identity, what role the DMO plays, what appears transferable, and what depends on circumstances that differ from yours.

Copying a successful food destination rarely works. The conditions that made it succeed are usually local.

9. Strategic diagnosis

The strategic issues that matter most

• Issue 1: [Complete]
• Issue 2: [Complete]
• Issue 3: [Complete]
• Issue 4: [Complete]
• Issue 5: [Complete]

10. Vision

Describe what the destination wants its food tourism offer to become. Write a destination outcome, not a marketing slogan. A useful test: could a producer, a chef and a municipal officer all recognise their own work in it?

Our food tourism vision

[Complete]

11. Strategic objectives

Set three to six objectives. Possible areas: strengthening local food identity, developing visitor-ready experiences, increasing local economic value, supporting year-round demand, connecting rural producers with visitors, improving experience quality, strengthening collaboration, increasing use of local products, improving accessibility, supporting sustainable food systems, developing skills, improving international visibility.

12. Experience development

13. Food storytelling

Define the stories the destination can substantiate. Possible themes: geography, climate, ingredients, agriculture, fishing, migration, cultural exchange, traditions, innovation, people, seasons.

For every story, four questions. Is this true? Can we demonstrate it? Who has the right to tell it? Does the story benefit the people and communities represented?

Do not manufacture traditions, and do not present a living food culture as a visitor commodity without the involvement of the community it belongs to.

14. Sustainability and responsibility

Assess local sourcing, food waste, seasonality, supply chains, biodiversity, water and energy use, transport, packaging, fair employment, community benefit, cultural ownership, accessibility and dietary inclusion.

Make no environmental claim you cannot evidence. An unsupported sustainability claim is a reputational liability, and in several markets a regulatory one.

15. Governance

• Lead organisation: [Complete]
• DMO role: [Complete]
• Partner roles: [Complete]
• Decision-making structure: [Complete]
• Industry engagement mechanism: [Complete]
• Community participation: [Complete]
• Review cycle: [e.g. quarterly steering group, annual strategy review]

How disagreement is resolved

Food strategies involve competing commercial interests. Agreeing this before the first disagreement is easier than during it.

[Complete]

16. Action plan

Copy this block for each action. An action without an owner and a date is an intention, not a plan.

Workstreams

Organise the actions under these nine workstreams. The suggested actions are prompts, not a required list.

1. Food identity and positioning

• Complete destination food asset mapping
• Agree the destination food narrative
• Document priority food stories
• Develop photography and content guidance
• Establish terminology and translation guidance

2. Product and experience development

• Identify experience-development gaps
• Support producer visitor-readiness
• Develop bookable food experiences
• Improve connections between existing experiences
• Develop seasonal experiences
• Test new concepts with visitors before scaling

3. Business and skills development

• Training for food producers entering tourism
• Digital distribution support
• Storytelling training
• Accessibility training
• International visitor readiness
• AI and digital skills
• Sustainable food practices

4. Partnerships and local food networks

• Establish a destination food tourism network
• Connect hospitality businesses with producers
• Build collaboration with agriculture and fisheries
• Connect tourism with education and research
• Establish regular industry meetings

5. Visitor information and digital discoverability

• Audit destination food content
• Improve structured information about food experiences
• Improve multilingual information
• Improve dietary and accessibility information
• Improve booking links
• Review visibility in traditional and AI-powered search

On the last point: AI assistants now answer a large share of trip-planning questions. If your food experiences are not structured for machine reading, the answer a traveller receives is assembled from someone else's material. See the AIRETT Answer-Engine Optimisation resources in the Toolkit.

6. Marketing and communications

• Develop evidence-based food content
• Integrate gastronomy into destination campaigns
• Build media and creator programmes
• Develop seasonal campaigns
• Support partner content
• Connect food stories with wider destination positioning

Marketing follows product development. Do not promote experiences that cannot reliably meet the expectations you create.

7. Events and business events

• Integrate local food into destination events
• Develop food festival opportunities
• Create local menu guidance for conferences
• Develop food-related incentive experiences
• Connect event organisers with local producers

8. Sustainability and community benefit

• Increase local supply-chain connections
• Reduce food waste
• Improve measurement
• Support seasonal sourcing
• Include community food traditions appropriately
• Improve accessibility and dietary inclusion

9. Research and measurement

• Establish the baseline before claiming any impact
• Agree which indicators are genuinely measurable
• Set the review cycle

17. Measurement framework

Establish a baseline before claiming impact. Use an indicator only where reliable data exists; an indicator you cannot populate is worse than none, because it invites invention.

Do not claim that food tourism caused an economic, social or environmental change unless the evidence supports that conclusion. Correlation with a good season is not causation.

18. 90-day starting plan

A strategy should lead quickly to practical work.

19. Final strategy check

Before approving the strategy, work through these. A "no" is not a failure; it is the next piece of work.