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A food festival is a festival, that features food, often produce, as its central theme. These festivals have been a means of uniting communities through celebrations of harvests and giving thanks for a plentiful growing season.
Food festivals throughout the world are often based on traditional farming techniques and the seasons of the year. Food festivals are related to food culture of an area, whether through the preparation of food served or the time period in which the festival is celebrated. Food festivals are considered strengthening agents for local cultural heritage, and simultaneously celebrate this cultural heritage while also commodifying it for a national or international audience. [1] While historically aligned with culturally significant food harvesting periods, contemporary food festivals are usually associated with businesses entities or nonprofit organizations and engage a great deal of marketing for their festivals, since their success is measured off how much revenue they generate for the local community, region, or entity putting on the event. [2] Modern food festivals are also a large part of the food tourism industry, which uses food festivals and regional cuisine to support the broader tourism industry of a particular locality. [1]
Food festivals are quickly becoming part of a vast food tourism industry. Food tourism itself has become an important part of the tourism industry worldwide, and the presence of food festivals shown to support local industry development. [3] Food festivals are an important part of destination branding for many regions, creating an event-based reason for individuals to visit otherwise unattractive localities and promote local products and services outside of an urban product environment. [3] Several case studies have shown that food festivals can potentially improve social sustainability while also heavily supporting the tourism and hospitality industries. [4] Food tourism is also an important reason why people attend food festivals around the world. [5] Studies have shown that engagement with food tourism indicates that an individual will attend festivals again in the future, indicating a cooperative element to food tourism and food festival attendance.
| Festival name | Type | Country/city | Since | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bankstown Bites Food Festival | Food | Australia | ||
| Hokitika Wildfoods Festival | Food | New Zealand | ||
| Caxton Street Seafood and Wine Festival | Wine festival/Food | Australia | ||
| Good Food & Wine Show | Wine festival/Food | Australia | ||
| Grampians Grape Escape | Wine festival | Australia | ||
| Kings Cross Food and Wine Festival | Wine festival/Food | Australia | ||
| Melbourne Food and Wine Festival | Wine festival/Food | Australia | ||
| Taste Festival | Food | Australia | ||
| Vegfest (AU) | Food | Australia | ||
| Darwin Beer Can Regatta | Beer festival | Australia | ||
| GABS Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers of the Year | Beer festival | Australia | ||
| Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular | Beer festival | Australia | ||
| Schützenfest (Adelaide) | Beer festival | Australia | ||
| Warners Bay Beer Festival | Beer festival | Australia | ||
| Taste of Tasmania | Food | Australia | 1988 | |
| Wellington On a Plate | Food | New Zealand | 2009 | |
| Beervana | Beer Festival | New Zealand | 2001 |
There are several Florida food festivals and New Jersey food festivals. Other festivals include 626 Night Market in Arcadia, California; the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Michigan; Brentwood Cornfest in Brentwood, California; Mushroom Festivals in various locales; the Castroville Artichoke Festival, in Castroville, California; the Stockton Asparagus Festival, in Stockton, California; the ¡Latin Food Festival! in San Diego, California; the Lexington Barbecue Festival in North Carolina; the Posen Potato Festival, in Posen, Michigan; the Norwalk Oyster Festival, in Norwalk, Connecticut, Vaisakhi Festival in Yuba City, California, and the Howell Melon Festival in Howell, Michigan, known for electing the Howell Melon Queen.
Vegetarian food festivals include VegFests in Boston, Massachusetts; Salt Lake City, Utah; and San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; including the premier Boston Vegetarian Food Festival in autumn, an event originally copied from the then already longstanding Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair in Toronto, Ontario. The List of vegetarian festivals includes hundreds of such events in North America, and hundreds elsewhere, also.
| Festival name | Type | Country/city | Since | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jakarta Fashion & Food Festival | Indonesia | |||
| Thapar Food Festival | India | |||
| Osho Monsoon Festival | festival | India | ||
| Qatar International Food Festival | festival | Qatar | 2009 |
| Festival name | Type | Country/city | Since | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Festival de comida de rua Fortaleza | festival | Brazil / Fortaleza | ||
| Festival de comida de rua São Paulo | festival | Brazil / São Paulo | ||
| Mistura | festival | Peru / Lima | 2008 | the largest food festival in Latin America. Held annually. |
Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only", as people "travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours, business and other purposes". Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country's balance of payments.
Agritourism or agrotourism involves any agriculturally based operation or activity that brings visitors to a farm or ranch.
A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival constitutes typical cases of glocalization, as well as the high culture-low culture interrelationship. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.
Cultural tourism is a type of tourism in which the visitor's essential motivation is to learn, discover, experience and consume the cultural attractions and products offered by a tourist destination. These attractions and products relate to the intellectual, spiritual, and emotional features of a society that encompasses arts and architecture, historical and cultural heritage, culinary heritage, literature, music, creative industries as well as the living cultures with their lifestyles, value systems, beliefs and traditions.
Tourism in Mexico holds considerable significance as a pivotal industry within the nation's economic landscape. Beginning in the 1960s, it has been vigorously endorsed by the Mexican government, often heralded as "an industry without smokestacks," signifying its non-polluting and economically beneficial nature. Mexico has consistently ranked among the world's most frequented nations, as documented by the World Tourism Organization. Second only to the United States in the Americas, Mexico's status as a premier tourist destination is underscored by its standing as the sixth-most visited country globally for tourism activities, as of 2017. The country boasts a noteworthy array of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, encompassing ancient ruins, colonial cities, and natural reserves, alongside a plethora of modern public and private architectural marvels. Mexico has attracted foreign visitors beginning in the early nineteenth century, with its cultural festivals, colonial cities, nature reserves and the beach resorts. Mexico's allure to tourists is largely attributed to its temperate climate and distinctive cultural amalgamation, blending European and Mesoamerican influences. The nation experiences peak tourism seasons typically during December and the mid-Summer months. Additionally, brief spikes in visitor numbers occur in the weeks preceding Easter and Spring break, notably drawing college students from the United States to popular beach resort locales.
Cultural heritage tourism is a form of non-business travel whereby tourists engage with the heritage, tangible and intangible, moveable and immovable, of a region through activities, experiences, and purchases which facilitate a connection to the people, objects, and places of the past associated with the locations being visited. As opposed to natural heritage tourism, which focuses on visitors' interaction with the unimproved environment of the area being visited, including outdoor sports and recreation, hiking, diving, fishing, and naturalism, and pleasure tourism without any heritage interest, such as indoor recreation, gastronomy, and hospitality without any significant precedent in the history and heritage of the region, cultural heritage tourism can include activities such as tours of immovable cultural sites, such as historic house museums, historic fortifications, human history museums, and library documentary heritage collections, opportunities for purchases of moveable cultural property, such as antiques, antiquarian books, and other works and ephemera associated with the locations being visited, and opportunities for admission to or purchase of intangible heritage experiences associated with the tourism region, including gastronomic heritage and admissions to performances such as theatre, opera, ballet, indigenous dances, and storytelling.
The Castro Street Fair is a San Francisco LGBT street festival and fair usually held on the first Sunday in October in the Castro neighborhood, the main gay neighborhood and social center in the city. The fair features multiples stages with live entertainment, DJs, food vendors, community-group stalls as well as a curated artisan alley with dozens of Northern California artists. Due to community pressure the fair restructured the organization and partnered with local charities to collect gate donations and partner with groups at the beverages booths to raise money for those charities.
Sustainable tourism is a concept that covers the complete tourism experience, including concern for economic, social, and environmental issues as well as attention to improving tourists' experiences and addressing the needs of host communities. Sustainable tourism should embrace concerns for environmental protection, social equity, and the quality of life, cultural diversity, and a dynamic, viable economy delivering jobs and prosperity for all. It has its roots in sustainable development and there can be some confusion as to what "sustainable tourism" means. There is now broad consensus that tourism should be sustainable. In fact, all forms of tourism have the potential to be sustainable if planned, developed and managed properly. Tourist development organizations are promoting sustainable tourism practices in order to mitigate negative effects caused by the growing impact of tourism, for example its environmental impacts.
Kerala, a state situated on the tropical Malabar Coast of southwestern India, is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. Named as one of the ten paradises of the world by National Geographic Traveler, Kerala is famous especially for its ecotourism initiatives and beautiful backwaters. Its unique culture and traditions, coupled with its varied demography, have made Kerala one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Several international agencies ranging from UNESCO to National Geographic have recognised the state's tourism potential. Kerala was named by TIME magazine in 2022 among the 50 extraordinary destinations to explore in its list of the World's Greatest Places. In 2023, Kerala was listed at the 13th spot in The New York Times' annual list of places to visit and was the only tourist destination listed from India.
The Boston Vegetarian Society (BVS) is a non-profit educational organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, with the purpose of promoting and supporting vegetarianism and veganism. It hosts monthly speaking events and an annual vegetarian food festival in the fall.
The School of Hospitality Business is an industry-specific school within the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. Founded in 1927 as the nation's first business-based hotel training course, The School of Hospitality Business has 350 undergraduate students and 22 faculty members. The School of Hospitality Business is ranked #1 US Public Hospitality Business Program ; #2 US Public Program ; #3 Hospitality Management Degree Program ; and #4 Hospitality Management Program in the World. Students in The School can earn more than $300,000 each academic year in merit-based scholarships.
The Howell Melon Festival is a food festival held in mid-August which showcases the Howell melon, a cantaloupe hybrid claimed to be found only in the area surrounding Howell, Michigan. The first Howell Melon Festival was held in 1961. About 50,000 people attend the three day festival each year.
A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality, locality of musicians, or holiday. Music festivals are generally organized by individuals or organizations within networks of music production, typically music scenes, the music industries, or institutions of music education.
Artichoke Festival is a food festival held annually in Monterey, a town in Monterey County of the U.S. State of California. The city, which calls itself the "Artichoke Center of the World", began promoting the artichoke with a festival in 1960, and the festival has grown so large that it has been moved out of the town, into a nearby convention center. Artichoke Festival 2009 marked the 50th anniversary of this celebration.
The Greek Food Festival of Dallas is a food festival held annually in Dallas, Texas (USA), featuring traditional Greek cuisine and Greek culture.
The Taste of Summer Festival, previously known as the Taste of Tasmania, is an annual event held in Hobart, Tasmania, from 27 December to 6 January. The festival includes over 75 stalls featuring local breweries, distilleries, wineries, and eateries, drawing in both locals and tourists from around the globe. Hosted at Princes Wharf Nº1, adjacent to the historic Salamanca Place, the festival coincides with the State's peak of the tourism season. Additionally, Hobart's waterfront is the place where New Year's Eve festivities are celebrated, including the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, "one of the world’s greatest, and hardest, offshore races," as described by The New York Times. Visitors have the opportunity to taste the Tasmanian cuisine and beverages while enjoying live music and entertainment provided by a diverse selection of interstate performers. The event serves as an example of the significant role tourism plays in the economy of Australia. Beyond offering a platform for displaying local products, Taste of Summer generates socio-economic benefits such as job creation and amplifies the region's food and wine industry. Also, the active participation of the community in organising, managing, and providing entertainment emphasize their role in economic development. The diversity of Taste of Summer allows interconnection within the communities through "employment, volunteerism, networks and participation."
Culinary diplomacy, gastrodiplomacy or food diplomacy is a type of cultural diplomacy, which itself is a subset of public diplomacy. Its basic premise is that "the easiest way to win hearts and minds is through the stomach". Official government-sponsored culinary diplomacy programs have been established in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Lebanon, Peru, Israel, the United States, Cambodia, Japan, and Nordic countries.
The Disney California Adventure Food & Wine Festival is a food and drink festival that takes place each spring in Disney California Adventure in the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. The festival includes a number of themed kiosks, each featuring food and beverages from a particular aspect of California cuisine. Other offerings include wine and beer tastings, seminars, and cooking demonstrations. This event was inspired by the similar but much larger Epcot International Food & Wine Festival.
Tourism impacts tourist destinations in both positive and negative ways, encompassing economic, political, socio-cultural, environmental, and psychological dimensions.
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