The Main Trends, Factors and Prospects of Development of Gastronomic Tourism in Italy

Today, tourism is one of the most developing sectors of economy, the experience economy is a fairly new, unexplored area in science. Italian cuisine is known all over the world, the high level and quality of Italian products and of service attract millions of tourists from all over the world to Italy every year. This research aims to identify major factors and drivers of growth of gastronomic tourism in Italy, and to predict main scenarios and assess the state of culinary tourism in Italy. In order to do this, we will use mixed-methods approach. First, we will collect quantitative data, analyze economic reports and relative documents. Then we will conduct cluster analysis of the Italian regions according to the tourism type and propose our own gastronomic tourism competitiveness index to assess the level of tourism development in the Italian regions. Our findings will contribute to the existing knowledge about gastronomic tourism in general and in Italy in particular, as well as possible prospects for the development of this type of tourism.