Acceptance level of Malaysian gastronomic tourism products among the western tourists / Mohd Hairi Jalis

In previous decades, people mainly associated tourism with travelling for leisure and considered it as one industry, whilst some perceived the tourism industry as just providing services related to leisure and recreation. Those perceptions however gradually changed in the mid 1980s when people start looking at this industry as a broader realm with a huge range of products. Since then tourism activities and products have not only been seen to relate to accommodation, leisure, recreation, sports, culture, transportation, business but beyond that. Efforts are continually being made by international organizations to discover new tourism products and activities that would provide a great market opportunity to be promoted as excitement and motivation factors to encourage tourists to come to a particular destination. Of the many tourism products, gastronomic which relate to food, beverages and food culture are the new tourism products that can also be used as marketing tool to promote tourism. These tourism products are now seen as valuable means of attracting tourists from all over the world to visit that particular country. This study empirically investigates the Malaysian gastronomy tourism products and their acceptance among western tourists. In other words, the western tourists' perceptions, levels of consumption and experience of the local food, beverages and food cultures were examined. A sample population was randomly selected from among the western tourists at the KLIA who had consumed and experienced those products during their vacation in this country. The data for this study was based predominantly on self completed questionnaires. Series of statistical analyses were employed looking at frequencies, mean scores and standard deviations through descriptive and parametric statistics (independent sample t-test, One-Way ANOVA and standard multiple regression) were undertaken. It was apparent that the majority of the respondents perceived that Malaysia offers great choices of food, snacks and beverages of good taste and freshly prepared. Similarly to the food and beverages, the majority of the respondents perceived Malaysia as having a unique food culture and identity. This was further supported by their high levels of consumption and experience, as the majority of them enjoyed and spent a lot on money on those products during their vacation. In sum, these research findings clearly showed that these products can be used in addition to other tourism products as a catalyst to generate business and boost the local economy. This result on the other hand signals to the business operators, travel agencies, non-government organizations and government authorities (Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage and Ministry of Agriculture) and those who are closely associated with the tourism industry that they should take proactive action in promoting these gastronomy products if the 'total tourism experience' for international tourists to this country is to be achieved.