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

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Local spices that go into making different varieties of curries are also losing out to imported curry powders and spices. Recipes for spices used to be passed from one generation to the other, from mothers to daughters and protectively guarded like family heirlooms. The significant thing about Maldivian spices is that, even though more or less the same ingredients are used to make a wide range of curries, by varying the quantity, or the addition or omission of one or two ingredients can create a completely different tasting dish. Readymade imported curry powders have largely robbed this magic from Maldivian curries. Local cuisine is not given much attention by the tourism industry. All tourist hotels and resorts provide ‘Westernized’ international food – it is common for resorts to feature Italian, Thai, Mediterranean or Japanese restaurants – yet there are very few Maldivian restaurants or local menu items. Local cuisine for tourists is limited to the few items included in a buffet, often a grilled or baked whole reef fish, placed together with other international cuisine. 88
CHAPTER FIVE: THE CURRENT ROLE OF FOOD IN TOURISM This chapter presents an array of data on the role that food currently plays in the Maldives tourism industry. It presents content and discourse analysis of Maldivian tourism marketing materials (websites and printed marketing materials) and discusses the findings from the survey of industry experts and industry figures. It is vital to understand better the current ‘baseline’ of the food-tourism link, hence, the information provided here provides a link to the potential for closer links discussed in chapter six. 5.1 Role of food in tourism promotion In the analysis of marketing materials, all relevant units of analysis that could be obtained were included in the sample. These comprised printed material with information for tourists about the Maldives that were collected from resorts, promotional bodies (Maldives Tourism Promotion Board [MTPB], Hallo Maldives, and Group Empire), travel agents and cruise operators. Brochures from 16 resorts, three tourist guide books from promotional bodies, four brochures from travel agents or resort companies and one leaflet from a cruise operator were gathered. The brochures from resorts contained information about that particular resort, where as brochures from travel agents and resort companies contained information about a group of resorts that belonged to the company or were promoted by the travel agent. Out of the three guide books, one was published by MTPB, the official tourism promotion body of the Maldives. The other two were published by private organisations. All three guide books contained general information about the Maldives, Maldives’ tourism, information about tourist hotels and resorts and other facilities and services available in Male’ and from tourist hotels and resorts. Guide books also displayed information on local culture, cuisine and prominent places in Male’. The leaflet from the cruise operator contained promotional information about a safari boat that provides live-aboard accommodation, cruises and dive trips. The same 24 entities were identified as the sample for website analysis, out of which six websites were not accessible. One website was omitted as their online version is exactly the same as that of the printed material. The sources for the samples of printed materials and websites are listed in table 5.1. 89
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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
Page 47 and 48: tradition are made sustainable in t
Page 49 and 50: tourism” (p. 115). As their examp
Page 51 and 52: Slow Food Award in 2000 which recog
Page 53 and 54: eing researched. Although the small
Page 55 and 56: On the other hand, the focus of the
Page 57 and 58: A disadvantage of case sstudies is
Page 59 and 60: 1. data triangulation: uses a range
Page 61 and 62: A number of international organisat
Page 63 and 64: Content analysis has been a valuabl
Page 65 and 66: 3.6.2 Surveys “A survey is a good
Page 67 and 68: Table 3. 2 Advantages vantages and
Page 69 and 70: 3.7 Data validity and reliability I
Page 71 and 72: 3.8 Survey characteristics Out of t
Page 73 and 74: were doing doctoral research that w
Page 75 and 76: was a British protectorate from 188
Page 77 and 78: Figure 4. 2 Population growth rate
Page 79 and 80: 4.3 Economy The Republic of Maldive
Page 81 and 82: 4.4 Agriculture Agriculture plays o
Page 83 and 84: population was badly affected by th
Page 85 and 86: enefits of tourism among all the at
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
Page 93 and 94: Figure 4. 8 Market share of top ten
Page 95 and 96: provided a slow burning barbecue to
Page 97: Figure 4. 13 Rukuraa and raabadhi S
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 and 142: Figure 6. 1 Number of local and for
Page 143 and 144: local cuisine. This warning echoes
Page 145 and 146: • Since tourism operators and exp
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products. This would pave the way f
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• Promote Maldives as an environm
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Figure 6. 4 Garudhiya bai meal Sour
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Figure 6. 7 Canned curries, garudhi
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Figure 6. 11 Screw pine fruit and n
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Figure 6. 14 Short eats Source: Mal
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Figure 6. 16 Smooth loofah, Thoraa
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Figure 6. 19 Malaafaiy Source: Leis
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Figure 6. 21 Drinks made with local
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CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSIONS In an in
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list ‘local’ food items were of
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apparent from tourism marketing mat
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operator” (Omidi, 2009b). Those r
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Bibliography ADB. (2005). Country s
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Buhalis, D. (2001). The tourism phe
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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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