Food Involvement and Food Neophobiain Tourists’ Experience of Local Food Products

In general, food-related personality traits, such as food neophobia and food involvement, are stable characteristics and that individuals who are more highly involved with food are better able to discriminate between foods. From this point of views, this study assumed the important role of food-related personality traits of food neophobia and food involvement on local food experience at a tourist destination. Therefore, this study attempted to examine food involvement and food neophobia in tourists’ experience of local food products. Also the current study is to identify tourists’ tendency towards food neophobia and of food involvement, considering arguments that tourists seem to show neophilic tendencies, liking for novel food flavours, and high food-involved individuals may be more inclined towards new food experiences. The population was set as British tourists who had tasted local food during their holiday, since this study intended to consider food involvement and food neophobia to examine the difference of food experience amongst local foods regarded as unfamiliar, a little unfamiliar, and familiar to British tourists. The analysis found that travellers, who had eaten local foods in their destination, had neophilic tendencies, and they are also highly-involved in food. the findings of this study suggest that food neophobia and food involvement can be predictors of tourists’ behaviour related food consumption. limitations and future research directions of the study were also discussed.