Do High-Quality Restaurants Act as Pull Factors To a Tourist Destination?

Abstract

Tourists travel because they are pushed by their internal motivations and attracted or pulled by certain elements and features of destinations. However, a growing number of destinations have similar tourist attractions and need to differentiate themselves. The aim of this study is to unveil the power of high-level culinary tourism, focusing on Michelin-starred restaurants, as a pull factor and generator of tourism flows, as well as to create a model to quantify the level of importance of these highquality restaurants as nuclei of a destination. The gastronomic and culinary industry is one of the most traditional sectors in most economies and is now becoming a fundamental element in attracting tourism and promotion. In this study, we argue that certain types of business, such as high-quality restaurants, can generate tourism flows in their own right within a context where the role of tourists and enterprises has shifted from a passive to an active one, in which companies actively seek to become destination pull factors. A quantitative survey questionnaire with structured questions was applied to customers of high-quality Spanish restaurants, specifically Michelin starred, with 432 valid responses. The results show distinctive motivations of customers who travel mainly for the restaurant and those who do so for the destination. They also show the importance of the nucleus (restaurant) as a factor of attraction to the destination, but also the importance of the destination/ surroundings to the nucleus. These findings provide valuable information and insights for culinary tourism in the future, both for culinary companies and for destination managers, who can then adjust their marketing and management strategies, emphasizing the need for mutual collaboration. The findings may also be helpful to institutions and to communication managers of the destinations to improve their promotion and communication strategies, to diversify supply in mature destinations, and to deseasonalized demand.