Soothing the taste buds and the soul? An exploratory analysis of consumption of comfort foods in international travel

ABSTRACT

This research investigated dining behaviors from the perspective of eating comfort foods when traveling internationally. Individual in-depth interviews, supported by the photo elicitation technique, were conducted with thirteen participants who had traveled abroad within the past year. Content analysis was used and thirteen comfort food characteristics emerged in three main dimensions: past experience, pleasure and well-being, and palatability. The results may serve as a valuable reference for future studies on the roles of comfort foods in travel.

KEYWORDS:

• Comfort foods
• local cuisine
• international travel
• content analysis
• photo elicitation
• implicit theories

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science & Technology [MOST: 106-2410-H-328-004- MY2].

Notes on contributors

Janet Chang

Janet Chang is a Professor of Graduate Institute of National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality & Tourism. Her research interests include tourist behaviors, cultural tourism, food and tourism marketing. She has published several research in SSCI and Scopus journals.

Alastair M. Morrison

Alastair M. Morrison, Ph.D. Professor Morrison is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus specializing in the area of tourism and hospitality planning, development, and marketing in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, and Research Professor, University of Greenwich. He currently is the CEO of Belle Tourism International Consulting (BTI). He is the Editor of the International Journal of Tourism Cities. http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/ijtc.htm

Sharon Chen

Sharon Chen, Chen graduated from Graduate Institute of Food Culture and Innovation National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism No. 1 Songhe Road, Xiaogang District, Kaohsiung 81271, Taiwan.

Sean Hsin-Hung Lin

Sean Hsin-Hung, Lin He will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Administration, Shu-Te University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. His research interests include post-disaster tourism, tourist behavior, tourism management and food tourism. He has published some papers in scholarly journals such as British Food Journal, Food Quality and Preference, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research.