For many years, tourists have become more interested in learning about the culture of people, including their way of living, cuisine, religious customs, historical occurrences, architecture, and agricultural practices. Tourists have also long craved for new experiences that would give them a total package that includes the traditional ‘tourist gaze’, and more recently, an improved sensory experience, appealing to their taste and smell. Gastronomy has been that viable option for tourism development (Özdemir et al., 2017, Pérez Gálvez et al., 2017, and Sormaz et al., 2016), an increasingly important aspect of cultural tourism. It not only takes into consideration the uniqueness of a dish but also includes activities such as food festivals, the observation of the production process-from preparation to the consumption stage, and culinary training activities. In fact, Özdemir and Seyitoğlu (2017, 1) have illustrated that “the authenticity of local food and its presentation may be one of the dominant attributes that have an effect on the perceptions of tourists who are motivated to travel by gastronomical attractions.” These facts together with the increased focus on gastronomy by the Ministry of Tourism, Jamaica; has inspired this research paper to: 1) Identify the key factors that drive the need for diversification of the tourist product in Jamaica; 2) understand the nature of the transition from traditional tourist lure (white sands and beaches) to the neology of Gastronomy/ Cultural tourism; 3) understand the meaning of this change in the eyes of the government sector versus the private sector; 4) understand who is pushing this new focus for gastronomy as a policy decision for Jamaica's tourism sector; and, 5) understand how this new initiative have impacted cross-sector policies such as transportation, infrastructure and agriculture to name a few.
Author-supplied keywords: Gastronomy, food tourism, Agri-tourism, Agro-Tourism, Strategic coupling, Cultural tourism, Heritage Tourism, Local Economic Development Initiative, Strategic Alliance, Destination Brand Development, Cultural Tourist, gastronomic tourist, Jamaica, Cross-sector policy.
