Abstract:
Tourism is a key source of income to South Africa. Food and beverages is a
key part of tourism and the literature reveals that tourists spend up to a quarter
of their budget on cuisine. South Africa has, however, been rated as the
least-prepared culinary travel destination and the travel destination with the
greatest potential for growth. Therefore, a segmentation taxonomy based on
culinary preferences of international tourists to South Africa is put forth
which can be used to prepare South Africa as a culinary travel destination.
The 627 international tourists surveyed were divided into five segments with
the use of factor analyses, t-tests, Spearman rank correlations and analysis of
variance. The segments were named conservationists, experience seekers,
devotees, explorers and socialisers (CEDES taxonomy). Multiple results and
implications are discussed in the paper.
