Tasting Place: Storytelling and Sustainability in Food & Drink Tourism

“How much of my own story should I include in my new food tour?”

That was the question a professional tour guide asked me at a tourism industry event a few years ago. She had been offering a successful heritage tour in her region and was now diversifying into food and drink. “I already cover culture and heritage in my other tour,” she said. “People booking a food tour just want the food, right?”

Her question reflected a common assumption – that food and drink tourism is somehow separate from culture, history, and people, that it’s about product, not place.

Having worked extensively in food and drink tourism in the decade before Covid-19 and having engaged in many food and drink experiences in a leisure capacity, my own experience tells a different story.

More Than a Meal: A Place-Based Experience

Here’s just one example. At the very start of a food tour in Lisbon, I found myself standing under an archway, listening not to a chef or a recipe, but to a story – the story of the 1755 earthquake and how the city rebuilt itself, and why many of Lisbon’s buildings are clad in colourful tiles. I wandered the streets of Alfama, soaking in the sounds and smells of a lived-in neighbourhood. I tasted Pasteis de Nata, heard the story of a hand-packed sardine, met a guide named Ruthie who shared her passion for the place and her plans for the evening – a surprise birthday dinner for her fiancé, who we’d already met helping behind the scenes.

Yes, I experienced food, More importantly, I experienced place.

Each dish, each stop, each story was a reflection of Lisbon’s resilience, its creativity, and its humanity. It wasn’t just about consumption. It was about connection.

And here’s what struck me: I didn’t come away remembering the food itself as much as the meaning behind it. The why, not the what.

Food & Drink Tourism as a Lens

In our work at The Tourism Space™, we often speak about The Place Paradigm – the idea that tourism is not just about products, infrastructure, or volume, but about interdependent relationships and connections. Relationships between people and land, between hosts and guests, between past, present, and future.

Food and drink tourism is one of the most powerful lenses through which visitors can see and feel a place. It is immediate, sensory, personal, convivial. It speaks all languages, connects across cultures, and invites the heart as well as the mind.

Every ingredient tells a story of soil, season, and survival. Every dish reflects human choices, cultural identity, and deep-rooted pride. When we view food and drink this way, it moves from being an experience to being an expression of place.

Revealing Sustainable Values through Food & Drink Experiences

We don’t need to label food and drink tourism as “sustainable” or “regenerative” for it to live out those values. When designed with care and intention, it already does.

It is naturally aligned with place. It is built on community and collaboration. It offers a tangible way to deliver tourism that is good for visitors, good for hosts, and good for the future of place.

Here’s how:

It’s place-based by default, shaped by landscape, climate, seasons, and tradition.
It supports local livelihoods, from farmers to foragers, cheesemakers to chefs.
It’s low-barrier and accessible, no equipment, no specialist knowledge, no translation required.
It invites slower, more personal travel, fostering connection over transaction.
It honours heritage and identity, offering communities the chance to celebrate what’s already theirs.
It builds pride and confidence, reminding people that what’s ordinary to them may be extraordinary to others.

And perhaps most importantly, food and drink bring people together - around tables, in fields, at festivals. It creates the space where stories are told, laughter is shared, and memories are made.

Storytelling: the secret ingredient in meaningful food tourism

When developing food tourism offerings, it seems obvious that the focus should be on the produce: the dish, the drink, the tasting. But the real secret ingredient?

Story.

As food and wine content creator Eric J. Hoffman put it to me once:

“Every destination has, at a base level, food and drink. But what stories can you tell about the local ingredients, the traditional dishes, and most importantly, the people behind it all? Travellers want to hear those stories – and take them home to re-tell to family and friends.”

This reflects what I’ve witnessed in countless food tourism destinations. The product may be excellent, but what elevates it to unforgettable is the narrative.

Yet, in many places, those stories remain untold.

They are known by a few.
They are familiar to locals, and thus not seen as special.
They remain outside the visitor experience.

As destination leaders, we can help surface, connect, and elevate those stories – with care, curiosity, and clarity.

Because when a visitor understands the why – the context, the heritage, the personality behind the plate – the experience becomes meaningful, memorable and emotional.

Practical Strategies to support Food & Drink Tourism Development

So how can destination management organisations, public agencies, or local facilitators support the trade in developing meaningful food and drink experiences?

Here are five practical ways to begin:

Create time and space for storytelling
1. Run workshops that help producers and businesses articulate their story: their why, their origin, their uniqueness.
2. Provide simple tools, questions, and prompts to help draw out what’s most meaningful.
Map the food story of your place
1. Identify the distinctive ingredients, dishes, and processes that are unique to your region.
2. Look for natural linkages – seasonal rhythms, shared values, geographic route
Foster collaborative networks
1. Bring stakeholders together into clusters, trails, or themes that amplify their collective voice.
2. Help shift the mindset from individual promotion to shared storytelling.
Invest in experience design
1. Support businesses to think beyond the product: how do guests feel, learn, engage?
2. Encourage sensory immersion, personal interaction, and place-based context.
Use food as an invitation
1. Position food and drink experiences as the front door to your destination's wider story.
2. Let the flavour lead – and the deeper values follow.

Food & Drink Narratives: A Reflection of Who We Are

Food and drink tourism is not a niche offering. It’s as mainstream as it gets, offering an accessible and visitor-friendly way for a place to express itself. It’s about how communities come together, and about how visitors are welcomed into the story. It supports economies, nurtures identity and reconnects people with land, with tradition, and with each other.

Every food tourism experience is an invitation to see a place and feel a place more deeply.

Tina O'Dwyer is a strategist, trainer and professional facilitator specialising in sustainable, regenerative and collaborative approaches to tourism. She has collaborated with multiple networks, destinations and state agencies in Ireland and Great Britain on the development of food and drink tourism trails, events and experiences.