Warwick Frost - Gastronomy, Tourism and the Media

ASPECTS OF TOURISM

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ASPECTS OF TOURISM: 74

Gastronomy, Tourism and the Media

Warwick Frost, Jennifer Laing,
Gary Best, Kim Williams,
Paul Strickland and Clare Lade

CHANNEL VIEW PUBLICATIONS

Bristol Buffalo Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Frost, Warwick, author.

Title: Gastronomy, Tourism and the Media/Warwick Frost, Jennifer Laing, Gary Best, Kim Williams, Paul Strickland and Clare Lade.

Description: Bristol, UK; Tonawanda, NY: Channel View Publications, [2016] | Series: Aspects of Tourism: 74 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016011391 | ISBN 9781845415747 (hbk) | ISBN 9781845415730 (pbk) | ISBN 9781845415778 (kindle)

Subjects: LCSH: Food tourism. | Food in popular culture. | Mass mediaSocial aspects.

Classification: LCC TX631.F76 2016 | DDC 641.01/3dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016011391

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-574-7 (hbk)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-573-0 (pbk)

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Copyright 2016 Warwick Frost, Jennifer Laing, Gary Best, Kim Williams, Paul Strickland and Clare Lade.

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Warwick Frost is an Associate Professor in Tourism, Hospitality and Events at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. His research interests are in heritage, rural tourism, events and tourism, and the media. He is Editor of the Routledge Advances in Events Research series and a member of the organising committee for the biennial International Tourism and Media conference series.

Jennifer Laing is an Associate Professor in Management at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests include tourist narratives, heritage tourism and exploring extraordinary tourist experiences. She is Editor of the Routledge Advances in Events Research series, a member of the organising committee for the biennial International Tourism and Media conference series and a member of the Editorial Boards of Journal of Travel Research , Tourism Analysis and Tourism Review International .

Gary Best is an Honorary Associate of La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia and an independent consultant and author whose writing focuses on cultural tourism, gastronomy and festival and event management. His research interests are diverse, but tend to focus on tourism and the media; automotive history, heritage and culture; travel writing; distinctive cultural interactions in touristic contexts; and the means by which all of the above operate in popular culture.

Kim Williams is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Higher Education at William Angliss Institute, Melbourne, Australia. Kim lectures in event management and human resources. Her research background is diverse, but tends to focus on human resources issues, with a prime emphasis on professional development and training. She is also interested in event management, gastronomy, fashion and wine tourism.

Paul Strickland is a Lecturer in Hospitality Management at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include ethnic restaurants, Bhutanese studies, space tourism, wine, fashion and business education simulations. He is a PhD candidate researching in the field of wine events and social media usage.

Clare Lade is a Lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality Management at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Clare completed her PhD in regional tourism development, concentrating on network development and competitiveness through business cluster theory along Australias Murray River. Her primary research interests include gastronomy and regional festivals, regional tourism development and dark tourism.

Macon is the central character in this novel. Based in Baltimore, USA, he writes a successful series of guidebooks for Americans who are forced to travel overseas on business. The idea is that such accidental tourists want familiarity and sameness rather than travel adventures:

Accidental Tourist in France. Accidental Tourist in Germany. In Belgium . No authors name, just a logo: a winged armchair on the cover. He covered only the cities in these guides, for people taking business trips flew into cities and out again and didnt see the countryside at all. They didnt see the cities, for that matter. Their concern was how to pretend they had never left home. What hotels in Madrid boasted king-sized Beauty-rest mattresses. What restaurants in Tokyo offered SweetnLow? Did Amsterdam have a McDonalds? Did Mexico City have a Taco Bell? Did any place in Rome serve Chef Boyardee ravioli? Other travellers hoped to discover distinctive local wines; Macons readers searched for pasteurized and homogenized milk. (Tyler, 1985: 12)

Until quite recently, food was viewed as a necessary evil for most tourists. It was fuel, a convenience, a hygiene factor in the tourist experience mainly noticeable if it was bad (Quan & Wang, 2004; Scarpato, 2002a). As Cohen argued, while most tourists were interested in sights, customs and cultures that were different, they were, able to enjoy the experience of change and novelty only from a strong base of familiarity, which enables them to feel secure enough to enjoy the strangeness of what they experience (Cohen, 2004: 38). An environmental bubble of escorted group tours and international hotels allowed the visitor to venture out, but return to safety and familiarity for comfortable and comforting dining. The epitome of such a view of travel was the ubiquity of international cuisine , a series of generic Western dishes that came to dominate global hospitality practices and training courses. The result of such standardisation was that tourists were not only assured that hotel chains offered the same standard accommodation and service, but they were furthermore provided with the same safe menus. However, with sameness came dissatisfaction. In introducing her ground-breaking A Book of Mediterranean Food , Elizabeth David assured her readers that it contained recipes for, honest cooking as opposed to the sham grande cuisine of the International Palace Hotel (David, 1951: 5).