Stakeholder opinions on the possibility of Adana being a "City of Gastronomy" in The UNESCO Creative Cities Network and suggestions for the future

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO in short, was established in 1946 to establish peace, eliminate poverty and ensure sustainable development all over the world through education, science, culture, communication and information. UNESCO Creative Cities Network was established by UNESCO in 2004 within the scope of the Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity in order to ensure cooperation between cities and countries and to establish an economically, culturally, socially and environmentally sustainable development. The Creative Cities Network covers seven different themes. These; themes of design, literature, craft and folk arts, music, gastronomy, media arts, and cinema/film. There are six cities from Turkey in the network of which two hundred and forty-six cities are members. Joining the UNESCO Creative Cities Network provides economic, cultural, social, environmental and political benefits for cities. Being in this network provides important contributions in promoting the city, branding and evaluating its tourism potential, cooperating with other cities in the network and benefiting from their experiences. The aim of the Creative Cities Network Gastronomy theme is to preserve the natural structure of the culinary culture unique to a region, which is one of the intangible cultural heritages, and to transfer it to future generations as a heritage at the national and international level. In this way, it is aimed to preserve the natural structure of eating and drinking elements prepared with traditional methods. Adana has created a rich culinary culture with its fertile lands, Mediterranean climate suitable for agriculture, and thousands of years of knowledge it has created by hosting many civilizations throughout history. In this context, the aim of the study is to determine the level of awareness of tourism stakeholders about the possibility of a gastronomy city in Adana within the scope of UNESCO Creative Cities Network and to determine their opinions and suggestions on the subject. In addition to this, another aim of the study is to reveal the reasons for the negative result of Adana's previous application. Structured interview technique was used as the data collection method in the research. The main body of the research is Adana's tourism stakeholders, and the sample is a study group consisting of 13 people determined according to the judgmental sampling approach, which is believed to be directly related to the subject. The research data were obtained offline by sending face-to-face and e-mail via the prepared structured interview form, and were analyzed by descriptive analysis technique. Research findings revealed that the stakeholders have a high awareness of Adana's potential as a gastronomy city within the scope of UNESCO Creative Cities Network, they know the city well, they have knowledge about what needs to be done in order to become a gastronomy city, and it has been observed that studies are carried out to eliminate the deficiencies for future applications. It is considered that Adana will be included in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a gastronomy city if the conditions are met to improve coordination on the road to becoming a gastronomy city, professional teamwork, effective presentation, completing the lobbying activities that were missing in the previous application, increasing traditional food markets, and making changes in the curricula of cooking schools in order to protect biodiversity.