Gastronomy, Entrepreneurship, and Perceived Territorial Development: Multi-Stakeholder Evidence from an Emerging Latin American Destination

This study examines the relationships among international gastronomic recognition, gastronomy tourism, gastronomic entrepreneurship, and perceived territorial development in Manabí, Ecuador, designated in 2025 as a World Region of Gastronomy 2026. A quantitative, cross-sectional, correlational design was employed using structured surveys administered to 312 stakeholders from the regional gastronomic ecosystem, including business owners, sector employees, tourists, and residents. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), including assessment of the measurement and structural models. All three predictors showed positive and statistically significant associations with perceived territorial development. Gastronomy tourism presented the numerically largest structural coefficient (β = 0.42), followed by international gastronomic recognition (β = 0.31) and gastronomic entrepreneurship (β = 0.27). The model explained 58% of the variance in perceived territorial development (R2 = 0.58) and showed positive blindfolding-based predictive relevance (Q2 = 0.31). The findings distinguish the complementary roles of tourism activation, symbolic recognition, and locally embedded entrepreneurial capacity in stakeholders’ territorial-development perceptions. The study extends evidence from an emerging Latin American gastronomic destination while recognizing the cross-sectional design, heterogeneous convenience sample, and perceptual nature of the measures.