Catering to foodies
Another generation would have called it “gluttony.” But today, a seemingly universal obsession with food by tourists is being catered to assiduously by the travel industry. And this attention to what goes between our lips is shaping much of what is offered to travellers today.
Take hotels. For those that are being designed today, restaurant facilities are front and centre, quite literally.
“The hotel restaurant is no longer buried in the back of the hotel plan, like in so many hotels from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s,” says Clay Markham, senior vice president at the global architecture and design firm CallisonRTKL.
“It’s right on the corner, so it’s seen as part of the community – a place where the locals go, as well as (part of) the hotel. And many new hotels are going for multiple dining and drinking spots, including speakeasies and rooftop bars.”
Cruise ships, too, are competing to “out-foodie” one another. Windstar Cruises has a partnership with the James Beard Foundation, one that requires its award-winning chefs to come aboard regularly and lend their recipes to the regular staff. TV celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s onboard restaurants was one of the main selling points when Royal Caribbean’s Quantum Class ships debuted two years ago. And Nobu Matsuhisa and Thomas Keller, two other huge names in the culinary world, have partnered with Crystal Cruises and Seabourne Cruise Line respectively.
Guided tours of all sorts, and from virtually every company, are adding “food experiences” from cooking classes to farm visits to meals in locals’ homes. And that’s even the case with tours that involve exercise, where one would have thought the participants would be more interested in shedding a few pounds. “We’ve been doing focus groups about what our guests love, and the highlight of our tours comes down to those local food experiences that our guests wouldn’t be able to find on their own,” says Jamen Yeaton-Masi, director of tour development for Country Walkers tour company. “They’re looking forward to being an invited guest in someone’s home, or having a chef not only do a cooking class, but also walk through a market with them.”
So why the foodie frenzy? Stephanie Lawrence, co-founder of TravelingSpoon.com, a company that hooks up individual travellers with home food experiences around the globe, summed up the appeal quite well.
“It’s so meaningful and really memorable to go into someone’s home and literally break bread with them,” Lawrence told me.
“It transforms travel into a true cultural experience that doesn’t happen from just going to a museum or out to a restaurant.”
Note to the reader: Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip. The information in this column was accurate when it was released, but prices are competitive, sometimes limited and can always change without notice.