Online communities and the sharing of extraordinary restaurant experiences

The use of an experiential, postmodernist approach to studying hospitality markets opens many opportunities for research with an emphasis on the consumer, not on the product. This paper uses virtual ethnography to explore how a community of foodies creates meaning, understanding and identity as a consumer ‘tribe’, through nuances in communications on an Internet blog. These foodie customers derive added value from their ‘skilled consumption’, and this is evident in their knowledgeable contributions to discussion and sharing of their experiences of restaurants. The existence of the community to whom the experience will be reported alters the nature of the experience before, during and after the act of consumption, and gives additional meaning, as a symbol of shared values and identity.