Culinary fans vs culinary critics: characteristics and behavior

Purpose The purpose of the current study is to profile Orlando and Florida culinary fans and compare them to culinary critics on several factors, including sociodemographics, psychographics, and travel behavior characteristics, and to identify potential factors that explain visitors' tendency to promote or criticize the cuisine of a destination. The study also seeks to identify the image attributes that explain the likelihood to visit for culinary fans and critics. Design/methodology/approach Online survey responses from 4,082 participants were analyzed using Qualtrics for survey design and Amazon's Mechanical Turk for data collection. Findings Demographic differences between culinary fans and critics were identified and significant relationships between perceptions of a destination's cuisine and various elements of the visitor experience were found. Research limitations/implications The current study extends the literature on the characteristics of culinary tourists by showing a significant relationship between perceptions of a destination's cuisine and various elements of the visitor experience, such as destination image, satisfaction, number of past trips, and revisit intentions. Future studies should look at a greater number of distinct and geographically diverse destinations to test the generalizability of the current study's findings. Practical implications The results of this study provide implication for destination marketers in general and for those of Orlando and Florida in particular, especially in using cuisine as a potential core offering rather than a peripheral tourism product. Originality/value This study is believed to be the first to compare culinary fans and culinary critics, thereby extending the literature and demonstrating several differences between the two groups.