FOOD TOURISM AS A NEW TYPE OF TOURISM IN THE EGYPTIAN HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

There is no doubt that food is one of the indispensable basics of life, so food has a great relationship and importance in various fields, including tourism and hospitality. Therefore, this research aims to identify the status of food tourism as a new tourism pattern within the Egyptian tourism market, through the search for and the real international position of food tourism at the international level and to highlight the importance of this important tourism pattern and thus assess the status of the food tourism pattern at the level of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Then work to present a number of suggestions and recommendations that can help support the benefit of this important and distinctive tourist pattern, as well as with the aim of trying to draw attention to this important pattern as food is of great importance that cannot be neglected, whether at the local or international level.
In order to achieve these goals, two sources of evidence were used, which include A number of questionnaire forms were designed and distributed to a number of guests and tourists in three Egyptian tourist destinations(400 Questionnaires were distributed, of which 348 were valid for statistical analysis, with a rate of 87%), in order to identify the opinions of the research respondents about food tourism. Also, a number of personal interviews (58) were conducted with a number of experts in the field of tourism and hospitality to find out their point of view on the subject of the research. On the other hand, because it was difficult to apply the study to all those concerned with tourism and hotel activity in Egypt, and due to many obstacles, including the lack of time, costs and not easy to access to all those concerned with the subject of the research, Therefore, the study was limited to identifying semi-random samples to choose the respondents, as well as those who were interviewed in the places where the research sample was targeted. The results of guests and tourists questionnaires showed that there is a weakness in the level of a awareness of them about Egyptian food. Also the results of the analysis of personal interviews with experts showed that it is important to establish a special department for food tourism within the Egyptian ministry of tourism and antiquities. The research also reached a number of important recommendations, including emphasizing the importance of food tourism as a new pattern that can be used in the Egyptian tourist and hotel market. Interest in stimulating food tourism can also benefit Egyptian tourism by increasing tourism income, as well as spreading awareness about Egyptian food culture and habits that span thousands of years.