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

tourism” (p. 115). As their example of tourism development in Wales illustrate,
promoting local food had similar effects to creating and promoting a niche tourism
market. In addition, the promotion of locally produced foods provided tourists an
authentic experience while at the same time reviving local traditional foods, supporting
and encouraging locally produced products, stimulating traditional farming practices
and creating a healthy agricultural community. This in turn contributed to creating
agricultural landscapes, the images of which could be used to brand and market the
destination. Thus, promotion of local food is a means to develop and support sustainable
tourism products, especially as a “potential antidote for stagnating mass tourism
demand” (Jones & Jenkins, 2002, p. 116).
While diets across the world have become more varied and the distinctive boundaries of
local cuisines hazy, the food-service sector throughout the world is littered with global
food brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds and KFC. Branded as “fast foods”, they are
said to embody all the negative aspects of globalisation and homogenization (Schlosser,
2001, p. 96). Scarpato and Daniele (2003) envisage that with the blurring of regional
borders, regional cuisine is constantly evolving and cuisine will never again be
restricted to just locally available ingredients. These issues have to be noted when
considering the development and promotion of local cuisine in order to insure its
authenticity, and particularly because of its wider implications on the sustainability of
local communities (Chappel, 2001, in du Rand, et al., 2003).
Fields (2002) advocates that the pressure for destinations to differentiate corresponds to
tourists’ demand for unique products and experiences. Therefore the key for success is
for destinations to link their unique local culinary experiences to the primary resources.
Fields further notes that:
If a destination wishes to build a strong identity in the minds of
tourists, it must market its differences along with its main
motivational attractors. In an increasingly look-alike world, food with
a strong national or regional identity can become one of the vehicles
for achieving this. (p. 43).
In today’s globalized world, where social and cultural structures are weak and
disintegrated, there is a high level of social and personal insecurity (Bauman, 1997;
Giddens, 1990). Through culture and heritage, tourism provides a source of identity for
those who are in search of ‘themselves’ (Palmer, 1999). The character and mentality of
a society is embodied in the culinary heritage of a destination (Bessiere, 1998). Since
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