Culinary Tourism Development Based on Marketing Mix Strategy : The Case of Khorasan Razavi Province

Food is considered as an integral part of tourism experience, and culinary tourism is a relatively new concept in the tourism industry. Culinary tourism deals with cookery, cuisines, and food ways of a country, region, or locale as a unique and memorable activity. The present study was aimed to prioritize factors influencing culinary tourism development using marketing mix strategy in Khorasan Razavi province, Iran. This applied research was performed by descriptive–survey method. The population consisted of experts in tourism and hotel management as well as experts in food industry, cookery, and restaurant management. Using stratified random sampling, first 200 participants were selected to fill the questionnaire, in order to identify effective factors, and then, 10 experts were asked to rank these factors. Confirmatory factor analysis and Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process were employed to analyze the data. Findings of the study suggested that, among the four marketing mix strategies, price-related factors with a normal weight of 0.033 ranked first, and in terms of sub criteria related to study dimensions, matching prices to product quality and branding of local food products with a weight of 0.095 and 0.093, respectively were identified as the top factors influencing culinary tourism development.