The Role of Local Food in Maldives Tourism - Scholarly Commons ...

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Compared to other types of cuisine, Maldivian cuisine is considered as the least important type of food in tourism marketing. Foods that were given the highest importance reflect the dominant tourist market groups. As discussed in Chapter 4, the largest source market is Europe with Italy leading the market from this region, while from Asia Japan is the market leader. ‘Other food’ which was specified as Japanese and Korean was selected as extremely important by three out of the four respondents who answered this question. All these types of cuisines use mainly imported food and not much local products are used apart from fish that is often used in Asian dishes. Considering the importance given to these foods in the tourism establishments, the high food cost percentage on imported food can be explained. 5.3 Summary This chapter has shown that local food plays a relatively limited role in the marketing and promotion of Maldives tourism. This is reflected in the comparatively limited use of local produce and cuisine in the tourist resorts. Both operators and experts argue that there is limited use of local products by the tourism industry and that use of local food in tourism marketing is limited and is not viewed as important. 120
CHAPTER SIX: DEVELOPING LINKS BETWEEN LOCAL FOOD AND TOURISM This chapter discusses the potential for tourism to form closer links with the local food sector in the Maldives and the opportunities that exist to enhance these links. The existing obstacles that hinder the achievement of this objective are discussed, followed by suggestions to overcome the difficulties. The chapter draws on the surveys conducted among tourism operators and experts in the tourism industry. 6.1 Prospects for tourism and food linkage Local food provided for tourists has the potential to add “diversity and excitement” and enhance ‘the Maldives experience’. As an expert who works closely with both tourism and the food industry stated: It would be an absolutely fantastic Maldives experience if you add local food to the menus for the tourists visiting this country. I can surely state that if a tourist has a good Maldivian meal made with local produce he or she will never ever forget the experience. That taste will last a life time. It was put forward by a businessman involved with the tourism industry: Maldives is the apple of the eye of the world as quoted in a recent forum in Europe. Maldivian food as well has immense potential to become popular as a tourist attraction. Although it is evident that local food is not used much in tourism marketing and tourism operators do not believe local food is important in promoting their businesses, they have indicated that if local food is used in marketing, it can improve and affect the image of their businesses positively. Operators indicated their opinion for this question on a seven-point likert scale (1 is very negative and 7 very positive). Most of the responses are at the higher of the scale and the mean score of the responses is 5.7 (Table 6.1). Therefore, it is clear that most of the operators believe that local food would have a positive impact on their businesses’ image. 121
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The Role of Local Food in Maldives
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CHAPTER FIVE: THE CURRENT ROLE OF F
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Figure 5.26 Buffet dinner .........
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Attestation of authorship “I here
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Abstract In the fiercely competitiv
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1.1 Background to the study CHAPTER
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attractiveness and promoting sustai
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Figure 1. 1 Map of the Republic of
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW The
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and nationalities are broadened (Sh
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focus on creating “meaningful tou
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quality of their services and produ
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waiting list for future Guggenheim
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Natural and cultural attractions ar
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local culture, built heritage, and
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Although the above inherent charact
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ituals and leisure (Tannahill, 2002
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and participation in the experience
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Cultural exploration is an integral
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2002). As Jones and Jenkins (2002)
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Figure 2. 2 Isle of Arran food trai
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globalisation strong local food ide
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vegetarian pizza outlets are run by
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tradition are made sustainable in t
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tourism” (p. 115). As their examp
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Slow Food Award in 2000 which recog
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eing researched. Although the small
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On the other hand, the focus of the
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A disadvantage of case sstudies is
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1. data triangulation: uses a range
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A number of international organisat
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Content analysis has been a valuabl
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3.6.2 Surveys “A survey is a good
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Table 3. 2 Advantages vantages and
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3.7 Data validity and reliability I
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3.8 Survey characteristics Out of t
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were doing doctoral research that w
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was a British protectorate from 188
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Figure 4. 2 Population growth rate
Page 79 and 80: 4.3 Economy The Republic of Maldive
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Page 87 and 88: As tourism became established in th
Page 89 and 90: prospect repeatedly proclaimed by e
Page 91 and 92: Table 4. 1 Maldives tourist arrival
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Page 97 and 98: Figure 4. 13 Rukuraa and raabadhi S
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Page 101 and 102: possible” (Sarantakos, 1998, p. 2
Page 103 and 104: Table 5. 3 Frequency of images in p
Page 105 and 106: (Figure 5.3). As Figure 5.4 illustr
Page 107 and 108: Figure 5. 6 Dining experience Sourc
Page 109 and 110: Figure 5. 9 Website with no informa
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Page 113 and 114: Figure 5. 11 Screw pine Source: Mal
Page 115 and 116: Figure 5. 14 Local ‘tea’ ceremo
Page 117 and 118: Hence, the kind of analysis needed
Page 119 and 120: Figure 5. 18 Barbecue menus Source:
Page 121 and 122: Figure 5. 19 Seafood display Source
Page 123 and 124: Figure 5. 22 Unloading fish to the
Page 125 and 126: chefs in our booming tourist indust
Page 127 and 128: Figure 5. 25 Activities featured as
Page 129: Table 5. 5 Importance of using loca
Page 133 and 134: Table 6. 3 Number of respondents th
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Page 137 and 138: experts, “It is of great potentia
Page 139 and 140: have failed to utilise”. One of t
Page 141 and 142: Figure 6. 1 Number of local and for
Page 143 and 144: local cuisine. This warning echoes
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Page 153 and 154: Figure 6. 4 Garudhiya bai meal Sour
Page 155 and 156: Figure 6. 7 Canned curries, garudhi
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Page 159 and 160: Figure 6. 14 Short eats Source: Mal
Page 161 and 162: Figure 6. 16 Smooth loofah, Thoraa
Page 163 and 164: Figure 6. 19 Malaafaiy Source: Leis
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Page 167 and 168: CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSIONS In an in
Page 169 and 170: list ‘local’ food items were of
Page 171 and 172: apparent from tourism marketing mat
Page 173 and 174: operator” (Omidi, 2009b). Those r
Page 175 and 176: Bibliography ADB. (2005). Country s
Page 177 and 178: Buhalis, D. (2001). The tourism phe
Page 179 and 180: Everett, S., & Aitchison, C. (2008)
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Heath, E., & Wall, G. (1992). Marke
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Lutfy, M. I. (1995). Dhivehiraajjeg
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MTCA. (2007b). Tourism Yearbook. Ma
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Ravenscroft, N., & Westering, J. V.
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Sheehan, K. (2001). E-mail survey r
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Veal, A. J. (1997). Research method
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Appendix 1 - Operators’ Questionn
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Appendix 3 - Participant Informatio
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Appendix 4 - Ethics Approval 197
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Committee. Until full approval has
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