Travel purpose has evolved from admiring the beauty of tourist destination to experience the local food in a country or city. Some people are even planning the entire holiday purposely to indulge and explore the authentic local cuisine. This phenomenon has led a lecturer Kunthi A. Kusumawardani, BA. MBA., and a student of Business Administration of President University Fadhilah R. Putri to write a research paper entitled “Exploring The Behavioural Intention In Culinary Tourism: A Study On Bandung Tourist Destination”.
The research paper has secured the second place in the 2019 International Conference on Culture, Technology, and Tourism (CTT). The 2019 CTT itself is a conference that was held by Universitas Prasetiya Mulya on 3-4 December 2019. This conference wanted to promote the integration of culture and technology in supporting alternative tourism as well as creating businesses in tourism that are inclusive and sustainable.
As Indonesia has more than 485 ethnic groups and thousands of unique local cuisine, the potential of culinary tourism in Indonesia is huge. In addition, the diversities of cultures also bring the potential to Indonesia to be one of the world’s largest gastronomy countries.
Bandung was chosen as the research object as it meets the criteria as a city that can be the culinary tourist destination due to the readiness of entrepreneurs, the diversity of food, and the commitment of the local government. Kunthi and Fadhilah found out that brand image, loyalty, and perceived quality positively influenced tourist motivation and behavioral intention. Aside from food, Bandung still has so many aspects that can be improved. For instance, the quality of the food in terms of hygiene, and also strengthening the culture in every culinary process so that tourists will not only come to try the food but also feel the culture.
Kunthi revealed that she felt happy and proud to be involved in collaborative research with her student. “I hope I can collaborate with more students in the future because President University students are bright, creative, and full of out-of-the-box ideas,” she said. She is looking forward to doing other collaborations with lecturers and students.