Potentiality of Northern Mindanao for culinary tourism: Basis for culinary framework

This study determined the potential of Northern Mindanao as a culinary tourism destination by assessing its culinary travel experience, product potential attractiveness, and food image attributes.Quantitative descriptive method was used with survey through online and pen-and-paper as the data collection technique.There were 411 respondents who visited the region and experienced the food.The results of the test for relationships between variables showed that there was a highly significant relationship between culinary travel experience and product potential attractiveness which means that the better the culinary travel experience, the better the product's potential attractiveness.There was a highly significant relationship between culinary travel experience and food image attributes which means that the better the experience on culinary travel, the more positive the food image attributes and there was a highly significant relationship between product potential attractiveness and food image attributes.This means that the better the assessment of product potential attractiveness, the more positive the food image attributes.The relationships among variables were used as basis in conceptualizing a culinary framework to give emphasis on authenticity and heritage in culinary tourism which gives connection to food image attributes and culinary travel experience.Further research may be conducted to explore the differences of the two main variables namely culinary travel experience and product potential attractiveness to the profile variable age, sex, educational attainment, and employment status as it affects the potentiality of the destination for culinary tourism.