A food & wine tourist is a traveller who takes at least one overnight trip primarily motivated by gastronomy. What distinguishes this traveller from a more general tourist is the main reason for travelling, not simply participation in food-and-wine experiences, which are now widespread and appreciated by many audiences. For the food & wine tourist, these experiences are the centre of the trip; for the general traveller, they are complementary activities that enrich the holiday. The term is often used too loosely, however, to indicate anyone who joins a themed experience or, more broadly, takes an interest in food while travelling.
The food & wine tourist is an eclectic and innovative traveller who seeks a varied mix of enriching, multisensory, emotional and cultural experiences. Dining in restaurants to taste local dishes remains the most common activity. Strong interest is also directed toward production sites, especially wineries, because they offer the chance to understand origins, processes and production methods. Market visits, tours and themed events are also highly popular.
Increasingly, this audience looks for innovative proposals that combine food, wine and olive oil with culture, wellbeing and sport. They seek active experiences in direct contact with producers, such as harvest activities, as well as outdoor experiences like hiking and cycling through vineyards and olive groves. Through food & wine travel, they also search for better psycho-physical balance, showing growing interest in yoga, painting and wellness treatments based on wine, beer or olive oil.
The result is a multifaceted set of experiences through which gastronomy can be discovered and lived in many different ways.
Over the last decade, gastronomy has become increasingly central within tourism, leading to the emergence of new forms, formats and places of consumption and experience.
Today, food & wine tourism can no longer be reduced to buying local products or tasting traditional dishes while on holiday. It is expressed through a plurality of products, services and experiences in which sensory engagement is a key factor, allowing visitors to access local cultural heritage actively and to immerse themselves in the life and traditions of the host community. Gourmet or historic restaurants, production sites such as wineries, breweries, olive mills, dairies and pasta producers, food markets, taste museums, artisan shops, events, festivals, themed tours and cooking classes are only some of the most visible ways in which gastronomy becomes a tourism attraction.
In this light, food & wine tourism should be seen as a dynamic set of tourism products, services and experiences that take shape within each territory, highlighting both gastronomic and non-gastronomic specificities. It cuts across different tourism segments and keeps evolving by adding new facets over time.
Almost all Italian and international tourists report having taken part in at least one food-and-wine related activity during their most recent holidays. The most popular experiences, although with some differences by market, include eating local dishes in restaurants, buying food from food trucks and visiting food markets. Festivals and winery visits are also highly appreciated.
As shown in the various editions of the Report on Food & Wine Tourism in Italy, this interest spans generations. It concerns both senior travellers and the youngest audiences, with the latter preferring more immersive and active experiences, while older visitors tend to favour more traditional proposals such as visits and tastings.
It is important to remember that participating in experiences linked to food, wine and related themes is now an increasingly widespread tourism behaviour. Travellers often do not stop at a single activity, but combine several different experiences. According to our research, 39% of international travellers and 67% of Italians have taken part in five or more such experiences.
Economic benefits. The development of food & wine tourism can increase arrivals and overnight stays in a destination and generate additional revenue from visitor spending even in the short term. In the medium and long term, this sustained attention can make the local offer richer, more diversified and more attractive. Food & wine tourism can therefore act as a catalyst for the competitiveness of the wider economic system, not only tourism and agriculture, increasing the ability to attract private investment and public funding.
Social and socio-cultural benefits. The development of food & wine tourism creates new jobs across the supply chain and related sectors and, over time, can increase the wellbeing of local communities. It can also encourage the rediscovery of local heritage and support actions that protect and enhance it sustainably. This process strengthens awareness of the value of food, not only as culture, but also as part of healthy lifestyles and food education.
Environmental benefits. Food & wine tourism can encourage the use of local products, because that is exactly what travellers are looking for. This helps build or reinforce short local supply chains and reduces environmental impacts. The same approach can support more efficient and sustainable agricultural practices, while increasing attention to the protection of rural and food landscapes.
As food & wine tourism grows and new formats, channels and places of experience emerge, traditional roles are being enriched with new responsibilities and skills. Agritourism managers, restaurant owners, chefs, maîtres, sommeliers and tour guides no longer perform only their classic tasks: they also become ambassadors of local gastronomy and storytellers of the destination.
At the same time, new professions are emerging and spreading, first and foremost the hospitality manager within farms and wineries. It is useful to clarify the responsibilities of this role, which is often confused with the person who simply guides visitors through tours and tastings.
The hospitality manager is responsible for managing visitor reception and experience design, for example by building products, services and tourism experiences aligned with current and potential target audiences, managing staff dedicated to visits and tastings, and promoting and selling the offer. In smaller businesses, this role may also directly guide visitors.
It is therefore clear that this professional profile requires solid tourism skills in addition to technical knowledge about the product itself, whether wine, cheese, olive oil or something else, and about the company. Anyone who wishes to work in this role must acquire this theoretical and practical know-how rather than relying only on agri-food expertise.
Food and wine are among the key drivers that support Italy’s image worldwide, alongside fashion and tourism. This positive reputation encourages travellers to see Italy as one of the leading destinations for a food-and-wine-themed trip, as confirmed by recent international research. Italy is in fact one of the preferred destinations both in nearby European markets, especially the German-speaking countries, and in long-haul markets.
This strong image is closely connected to the richness, quality and capillary presence of the country’s food and wine resources. Italy has the highest number of certified agri-food and wine products in Europe and worldwide, and every territory can boast distinctive excellence. These resources also have strong cultural value, expressing knowledge, traditions and lifestyles rooted in places and communities. That heritage translates into a wide variety of tourism proposals, from restaurants, agritourism businesses and wineries to itineraries, festivals and themed events, each shaped by the character of its territory.
Food and wine tourism is therefore not relevant only for destinations traditionally associated with wine and gastronomy, such as Tuscany or the Langhe. It matters for the whole country system and still has significant untapped potential that can strengthen the competitiveness of Italian tourism.
The link between food and wine and tourism is not new. Since the rise of modern travel in the second half of the twentieth century, eating local cuisine and buying typical products have been common habits among travellers. What changed from the early 2000s onward is the centrality of gastronomy within the tourism experience: it has moved beyond being a simple necessity or a niche interest for enthusiasts and professionals.
This is also when the first structured studies began to appear. Scholars such as Lucy M. Long, Michael C. Hall and Liz Sharples started to define and investigate food & wine tourism, while destinations, especially in the United States and Canada, commissioned market research to understand how widespread food-, wine- and beer-related experiences had become. These early analyses already showed strong growth in only a few years.
By 2015, food & wine tourism had become a recognised global tourism segment. UN Tourism organised its first world conference dedicated to the theme, followed by the cycle of conferences on wine tourism. Since then, academic interest and industry attention have grown rapidly, while more countries and regions have started to adopt dedicated strategies and reference studies for the sector.
A useful way to understand the value of food & wine tourism is to look at the importance it has gained for travellers. Because it is a transversal phenomenon, economic estimates are complex, but demand indicators are very clear.
In 2023, 58% of Italian travellers said they had taken at least one overnight trip primarily motivated by gastronomy, 37 percentage points more than in 2016. In absolute terms, that means about 9.6 million people. Interest in food, wine and beer experiences is no longer limited to a niche: it now involves almost all Italian travellers, most of whom have enjoyed several themed experiences during their recent trips.
Looking at Europe more broadly, the European Travel Commission shows that food-and-wine experiences, together with those linked to natural landscapes, are among the most desired by European travellers. This confirms the strategic role of gastronomy in motivating travel and shaping destination choice.
Promoting and commercialising a food & wine tourism offer is a strategic lever that starts from understanding the market, both current and potential, and from designing coherent experiences. Every action should therefore be tailored to the specific context. Some guiding principles remain broadly valid:
Today, food & wine tourism is no longer limited to buying local products or tasting typical dishes. It also includes visits to production sites such as wineries, breweries, olive mills, dairies and pasta makers, meals in gourmet and historic restaurants, food-truck experiences, cooking classes, food tours and themed events focused on food, wine and beer. It is a plurality of experiences in which sensory involvement is central and through which travellers actively discover local cultural heritage.
The earliest studies on tourism and gastronomy in the United States and Canada had already highlighted the rapid expansion of this audience. In 2007, 17% of travellers had taken part in food-and-wine experiences during their trips; by 2013 that figure had risen to 77%.
Today these experiences are part of mainstream travel. According to the 2020 Italian Food & Wine Tourism Report, 71% of travellers from France, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Mexico and China take trips in order to enjoy memorable food-and-wine experiences, while 59% say such experiences help them choose between destinations.
The same trend is visible in Italy. Food-and-wine-themed experiences have become part of common travel behaviour, with 85% of Italian travellers saying they took part in at least one such activity during a trip, regardless of whether the holiday was focused on the seaside, the mountains or business. This shows a strong desire to discover local gastronomy.
At the same time, the food and wine component is no longer merely transversal: it is increasingly a primary travel driver. In earlier surveys, 21% of Italians on holiday in 2016 were interested in this type of tourism. That share rose in the following years, and in the most recent measurements 45% of Italians said they had taken at least one trip with gastronomy as the main motivation.
