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

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For these reasons local producers have difficulties in delivering fresh products to hoteliers even if sufficient supplies are available. Sharma (2005) disclosed the factors that affect linkages between local food production and tourist hotels: conventional tastes of tourists, low cost of imported foods, willingness of hotels to pay more in return for high quality and reliability of imported products and ignorance on the part of hotel operators about local products. In addition, local producers may not be aware how to establish contact with tourist establishments. These factors are echoed in operators’ explanations of the constraints they face in purchasing the right quality and quantity of local products and why they opt for regular deliveries of imported products. An operator stated that “90% of the food products are imported or purchased from an agent in Male’ due to unavailability of products in local markets.” Another obstacle in linking local food and tourism was noted as the restricted access for tourists to experience local ways of life due to the isolated nature of tourist resorts. It was stated by an expert that this compels tourists to experience “only half of the sunny side of Maldives”. “Maldives – the sunny side of life” is a widely used slogan by MTPB in tourism marketing. As one commentator stated, the other half of ‘the sunny side’ is about “how we live, what we eat and how we celebrate together”. Tourism operators and experts concurred that local culinary events are a way to display culture and tradition for tourists, and expressed that tourists are interested in visiting local islands and experiencing local culture. However, it was revealed that opportunities are rare for such activities because cultural tours or festivals for tourists in inhabited islands have not developed. In spite of the fact that fish was found to be the only local food that was really promoted in the marketing materials, it is an unexpected finding that tourism operators do not believe seafood, fish and fish products could be further developed for the tourism industry. Only one respondent selected seafood, fish and fish products as a potential local product that could be developed for the tourism industry (see figure 6.2). From the marketing materials it was found that fish and seafood were often presented as non-local dishes. Therefore, the fact that operators do not believe that seafood, fish and fish products could be developed for tourism suggests that operators are unsure of tourists’ reaction to local dishes. This argument is reinforced by the statement from an operator that read that the spicy nature of most local foods as well as limitation of varieties could deter the appeal of local food for foreigners. At the same time, it was also warned that modification of local food to tourists’ tastes carries the risk of affecting the identity of 132
local cuisine. This warning echoes the concern expressed by Fields (2002) that often the result of tourist destinations’ attempts to meet the demand for traditional food results in an ‘emergent authenticity’ as a consequence of altering local dishes to suit tourists’ tastes. Operators were asked to select the local produce that has the greatest potential to be developed for the tourism industry. The choices provided were seafood, fish and fish products, local vegetables and fruits and ‘other’ products (Figure 6.2). Most number of respondents (n=11 or 91.7%) chose ‘other’ items which was specified as handicrafts. The fact that the large majority of operators chose products other than local produce provides further support to the argument that tourism operators do not believe that it is important to develop local produce for the tourism industry. Figure 6. 2 Potential of local produce to be developed for tourism industry 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 other items (handicrafts) local vegetables/fruits seafood, fish and fish products Types of local produce It was pointed out by an expert that opportunities for potential tourists to experience Maldives cuisine before they arrive are rare, unlike for some popular ethnic foods such as Thai or Indian cuisine which prospective tourists are able to experience, albeit in modified form, before they visit those countries. In addition, an expert noted that so far Maldives has not been known for its culinary heritage. No strategic efforts have been made to document unique local foods and market them to tourists, and no studies have been conducted on tourists’ perception and preferences about local food. Therefore, a lack of awareness about unique Maldivian food may be a constraint in linking local food and tourism. As an experienced academic in Maldives tourism stated, unlike some 133
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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
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4.3 Economy The Republic of Maldive
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4.4 Agriculture Agriculture plays o
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population was badly affected by th
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enefits of tourism among all the at
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As tourism became established in th
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prospect repeatedly proclaimed by e
Page 91 and 92: Table 4. 1 Maldives tourist arrival
Page 93 and 94: Figure 4. 8 Market share of top ten
Page 95 and 96: provided a slow burning barbecue to
Page 97 and 98: Figure 4. 13 Rukuraa and raabadhi S
Page 99 and 100: CHAPTER FIVE: THE CURRENT ROLE OF F
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
Page 111 and 112: The description indicates that food
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 and 130: Table 5. 5 Importance of using loca
Page 131 and 132: CHAPTER SIX: DEVELOPING LINKS BETWE
Page 133 and 134: Table 6. 3 Number of respondents th
Page 135 and 136: ight quality of products from these
Page 137 and 138: experts, “It is of great potentia
Page 139 and 140: have failed to utilise”. One of t
Page 141: Figure 6. 1 Number of local and for
Page 145 and 146: • Since tourism operators and exp
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Page 149 and 150: products. This would pave the way f
Page 151 and 152: • Promote Maldives as an environm
Page 153 and 154: Figure 6. 4 Garudhiya bai meal Sour
Page 155 and 156: Figure 6. 7 Canned curries, garudhi
Page 157 and 158: Figure 6. 11 Screw pine fruit and n
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
Page 165 and 166: Figure 6. 21 Drinks made with local
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)
Page 181 and 182: Heath, E., & Wall, G. (1992). Marke
Page 183 and 184: Lutfy, M. I. (1995). Dhivehiraajjeg
Page 185 and 186: MTCA. (2007b). Tourism Yearbook. Ma
Page 187 and 188: Ravenscroft, N., & Westering, J. V.
Page 189 and 190: Sheehan, K. (2001). E-mail survey r
Page 191 and 192: 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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