Presentation at the 3rd International Conference UNITWIN UNESCO Chair “Culture, Tourism, Development” "Tourism and Gastronomy Heritage: Foodscapes, Gastroregions and Gastronomy Tourism", Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. June 18th 2014 By Elena Marchiori, Fabienne Boegli, Asta Adukaite, and Lorenzo Cantoni, webatelier.net of Faculty of Communication Sciences at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI Lugano, Switzerland).

1. The Role of Food and Gastronomy in
Online Travel Reviews about Agritourism
Experiences. The case of Italy
Elena Marchiori
Fabienne Boegli
Asta Adukaite
Lorenzo Cantoni

2. Introduction
Rural tourism  growing interest
intrinsic characteristics: stressing ecological
equilibrium, relax, and healthy lifestyles
extrinsic factors: favorable legal frameworks and
funding schemas plus shortening of family/personal travel
budgets / travelling distances / vacation periods

3. Introduction
Rural tourism is a general model in which
agritourism plays only a small part
Agritourism consists of “traveling to farming
establishments in order to enjoy their natural,
cultural and productive values”
www.ecotourisminamerica.com

4. Agritourism Experience
The pyramid of agritourism, from Sznajder, Przezborska, Scrimgeour (2009)

5. International Visitor Dining Experiences and
the Role of Online Travel Reviews
Wijaya et al. (2013)  external factors that might
influence the visitor dining experience with local
food in the destination:
 food quality
 food cultural-related
 physical aspect
 social aspect

6. Emerging trend within User Generated
Contents (UGCs)
UGCs contribute to the image of related businesses and
destinations, and eventually to their reputation, and are
used more and more by travelers planning their future
vacations.
(Cantoni & Tardini, 2009; Fuchs, Ricci, & Cantoni, 2012; Cantoni & Xiang,
2013; Marchiori & Cantoni, 2012)
Recent study: on 440 pictures about Switzerland, published
by Chinese tourists on the Chinese social network Sina
Weibo in one full year (July 2011-June 2012), has revealed
that images of food ranked number seven.
(Hu, Kalbaska, & Cantoni, 2013)

7. Methodology
Sample from: www.agriturismo.it
 1,710 OTR have been randomly selected,
written by tourists in Italian (598), in English
(573), and in German (539) about agritourism
businesses in 94 different Italian provinces,
distributed over all regions.
 A content analysis has been performed in
order to identify the dominant topics and food
related topics.

8. Results
Type of tourist per OTR, out of 1,710 reviews
Type of tourist* IT EN DE
Couple 36.7% 38.4% 52.7%
Family with children 35.3% 39.3% 32.7%
Group of friends 6.0% 5.1% 3.3%
Single 2.0% 2.1% 1.9%
Biker .8% 1.1% 3.0%
Big group .7% .4% .2%
Elderly .7% 2.1% 2.2%
Disable .4% 0 0
Company group .2% .4% 0.0%
Student .1% 1.4% .6%
Independent traveler 0 6.0% 1.5%
* Tourist categories were provided by the online platform.

9. Results
List of topics present in the OTR
Topics IT EN DE
Service / staff 96.5 76 79.4
Quality of food 60.1 58.1 61.6
Description of the guests 56.4 19.4 11.5
Length of stay 42.9 34.0 35.6
Return planning 36.3 33.0 34.9
Relax 33.2 15.7 17.6
Description of the
agritourism
26.7 27.1 31.0
Quality of the room 26.6 43.5 46.8
Panorama 10.6 41.7 35.8
Proximity to city 6.3 33.7 25.4
View from the room 7.6 28.4 21.5

10. Results
External food-related factors covered in the
online platform
Italian comments German and English
comments
Food quality Ingredients, receipts, handmade
food, biological food
Taste, handmade, quantity
Food
cultural-
related
Discovery of local tradition Discovery of the Italian food /
representation of the agritourism
experience.
Animals and farm
Physical
aspect
Family/home atmosphere Relax/peaceful atmosphere
Social aspect Friendship with the host Food prepared by the host

11. Results – Top food related topics
 Italian guests tend to comment mainly on the
food quality aspect (353 comments out of
598), in particular commenting the ingredients
and the receipts experienced
 German and English guests tend to be
more sensitive to the food-cultural related
aspect, underlining how their experience
was an occasion to discover the Italian food
culture.

12. Results - Physical aspects
All audiences recognize the characteristics of the
Italian agritourism environment: “relax, nature,
peaceful atmosphere”
 Italian guests underlined the feelings of
home/family environment,
 German and English guests underlined the
idyllic atmosphere.

13. Results – Social aspect
 For German and English audiences (334 and
302 comments respectively), the host
represents the mediator towards the quality,
and towards cultural issues.

14. Results – Negative comments
A minority among those analyzed:
156 Italian
108 German
278 English
Topics of the negative comments:
quality of food, complaining about not fresh or
packaged (not hand-made) food, or about the
quantity of portions.
English guests tend also to complain about the
service during their dining experience.

15. Conclusions
Italian agritourism dining experience:
simple and genuine ingredients, typical of rural
environment as opposed to a sophisticated
cuisine.
The dining experience is linked with the territory
and its history and traditions.
usually cultivated by the owners

16. Conclusions
“great Italian cuisine” components:
 food prepared by the host
 fresh and regional ingredients
 food is produced directly by the host/farmer or
by farms nearby
 variety of recipes
 the discovery of cultural aspects appeared to
be closely connected with the dining experience.

17. Conclusions
The social aspect combined with the dining
experience is therefore a successful attractor for
this particular tourism niche in the Italian tourism
offer.
The role of the owner:

18. Implications and future research
- Italian agritourism can jointly investigate the
possibility of introducing a clearer promotion
of their typical products and meals in order to
stress the dining experience
- Investigation on the regional peculiarities
emerging from the analyzed online contents

19. Thank you!
lorenzo.cantoni@usi.ch