Gastronomy tourism and Covid-19: technologies for overcoming current and future restrictions

With the Covid-19 pandemic that is limiting current travels and obliged individuals to maintaining social distancing, tourism industry is struggling with the need of remaining attractive to their current and potential customer. Technology certainly provides new opportunities, not only in facilitating tourists to access information but also in creating new home-based experiences. This chapter attempts to provide evidence of technological applications in the current scenario, paying attention to the gastronomy tourism experience. While the use of technology has been widely used in food sector and sites of production, there is a growing evidence of innovative concepts during the Covid-19 pandemic. Online cooking sessions and tutorials, live guided tastings, virtual reality tours, remote social eating and drinking are current and viable applications that have succeeded in supporting and temporarily replacing the traditional gastronomy tourism experience.