Faith-inspired Food Tourist

Abstract

Food has become not only a captivating and integral attribute of travelling but also a source of motivation and offers nourishment value to tourists. In addition, food endeavours to build human health by providing appropriate nutrition, adopting healthy environments, and presenting aesthetically to enhance tourists’ experiences. Thus, food advocates highly for human health and well-being. Recently, food has held high esteem in the research realm of culinary and gastronomy tourism and craves a niche by offering memorable tourist experiences. However, research on the nexus of food and faith and how food acts as a main driver for faith-inspired tourists has garnered scarce attention. Especially, the understanding of faith-driven tourists’ food consumption and related aspects in religious destinations has been limited in tourism literature. Emphasising the lack of research on food for faith-inspired tourists, this study intends to understand the role of Hindu temple food in driving and consolidating the faith as well as offering an overall tourist experience. To ascertain the study’s objective, individual semi-structured face-to-face interviews were employed for the exploratory nature of this study. As a result of thematic analysis, a total of four key themes have been identified as responsible for driving the food for faith-inspired tourists and categorised as follows: (1) offering purpose and spirituality to life, (2) delving oneself into sacredness and purity, (3) seeking salvation from the mundane desires, and (4) a mark of health and sustainability.

Citation

Mohanty, P.P. and Roy, H. (2025), "Faith-inspired Food Tourist", Fusté-Forné, F. and Wolf, E. (Ed.) The Food Tourist (The Tourist Experience), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 73-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83549-085-320251008