FLAVORS OF LJUBLJANA CULINARY SCENE

Year 2019, Volume: 2 Issue: 2, 108 - 111, 31.12.2019

Francesc Fusté-forné

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.

Keywords

Culinary landscape, Food tourism, Restaurant industry, Slovenia, Urban Environment

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