FLAVORS OF LJUBLJANA CULINARY SCENE

Abstract

Why tourists are paying a growing attention to food practices? Food is a significant cultural and natural identity marker (Berno and Fusté-Forné, 2019; Bessière and Tibère, 2013) and thus tourists seek to discover landscapes through food (Fusté-Forné and Berno, 2016; Hillel, Belhassen and Shani, 2013; Kim and Eves, 2012; Sidali, Kastenholz and Bianchi, 2015). Also, tourism organisations and businesses are increasingly using food and gastronomy as promotional and marketing tools (Cohen and Avieli, 2004; Du Rand and Heath, 2006; Okumus, Okumus and McKercher, 2007; Stanley and Stanley, 2015). Food, culinary and gastronomy tourism practices include a wide range of experiences, where eateries take a leading role (Levitt et al., 2019). While it is obvious that eating out is a compulsory consumption arena for travellers, there are other examples of food venues such as farms, markets or festivals, which also help in the boosting of food tourism at destinations (see, for example, Hall and Sharples, 2003; Timothy, 2016). Here, urban environments agglutinate the main tourist flows. This short article advocates that eateries in cities are a vital hook for tourists’ attraction and also a significant portion of their travel budgets. Furthermore, these food spaces are expected to convey a sense of authenticity of the place they are visiting (Goolaup and Mossberg, 2017; Jalis, Che and Markwell, 2014; Sims, 2009; Smith, 2015), providing a genuine experience.