A review of the concept of creative gastronomy tourism

In recent years, creativity has been increasingly viewed as a resource to innovate their food of- fers and improve distinctiveness in the market. Many examples in the existing literature deal with gastronomy tourism. Destinations – e.g., Peru with the 'Novo-Andean' cuisine and Singa- pore with the 'New Asia-Singapore Cuisine' – have sustained culinary innovation to create novel options for the amusement of travellers and improve their distinctiveness in the food tourism market. Food providers have developed hands-on activities like cooking classes to engage travel- lers by fostering their creativity. Scholarly research has therefore recognised that innovating food proposals through the creative use of local resources can help suppliers and destinations increase their competitiveness in the market. However, it has yet to devote much attention to how to value creativity in the gastronomic experience.
This chapter aims to review and expand the knowledge of creative gastronomy tourism and pro- poses a theoretical approach for its comprehension. We start by reviewing the notion of gas- tronomy tourism while clarifying the key elements of the practice and we follow with an expla- nation of the background and the focal approach of creativity to the gastronomic experience. We finally explain the processes underlying creative gastronomy tourism proposing an approach based on a consumer, a producer, and a destination perspective.