Gastronomic tourism: the influence of sensory perception and cultural food towards the intention to revisit among expatriates and tourists in Johor / Nur Ashiqin Mohd Zabidy, Nur Fareda Abdullah and Qatrunnada Ahmid

Instead of becoming the important role in our daily lives and also a tool of survival, Johor’s cultural foods reflect the place’s identity, uniqueness, history, traditions and cultures of the Johor. The cultural foods in Johor are recognized as an authentic, original, exotic which is unique and different from other state’s cultural food. The cultural foods in Johor are the symbol of hospitality, social status, and religious. What have been selected to eat, how to prepare it, serve it, and even how to eat it are all factors touched by cultural inheritance. Sensory perception which are taste, sight, hearing, smell and touch also may cause the expatriates and tourists attracted to visit Johor for their cultural foods. This paper report the opportunity of the growth of gastronomic tourism in Johor with regard of sensory perception and cultural food may lead the intention to revisit towards gastronomic tourism in the future. The result revealed that, the authentic, unique, difficult to find, exotic and show the community identity of the cultural food have significance influence that can stimulate expatriates’ and tourists’ intention to revisit and recommend it to their families and relatives. The trend of modem and urbanization food or other countries’ food expansion in the country will affect the original taste also the quality of the cultural foods and it may result them to be extinct. Therefore, the promotion and marketing the Johor’s cultural foods is an effective strategy to improve the tourism industry of Johor in gastronomic tourism.