Destination food identity scale development study

A destination, together with its various identity elements, serves as a prominent and distinguishing factor in gastronomy. Outlining a framework to determine the culinary identity of a destination can serve as a guiding parameter for researchers and managers involved in this field. In light of this, a scale development application is planned for this study. Given the utilization of both qualitative and quantitative research techniques, a mixed-method design is present in this study. The scale development process was implemented sequentially, following the necessary steps. Firstly, a review of the literature was conducted, leading to the preparation of a semi-structured interview form. Qualitative interviews were carried out with 18 different local administrators and food and beverage professionals, and a mind map was created using a qualitative analysis program. Based on the generated mind map and literature support, a pool of 133 items was formed. With expert opinions, certain items were eliminated, resulting in the completion of the qualitative research with a total of 72 items. The quantitative section consists of two parts: exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, the latter being conducted to validate the discovered model. For the quantitative analyses, a total of 600 questionnaires were collected in Gaziantep's recreational areas; however, it was determined that only 556 of them were usable. Exploratory factor analysis was performed, reducing the item pool from 72 to 58 items based on various criteria. According to the obtained results, the explanatory power of the developed model was determined to be 63.338%. A 12-factor structure was discovered in total. Subsequently, internal consistency analyses were conducted, and reliability analyses were performed for all factors. It was observed that all factors exceeded the threshold value. Item analyses were then conducted, revealing that the total of 58 items in the item-total score scale correlation table were interrelated. Discriminant analyses were performed for the 58 items, and it was determined that all items possessed distinctive characteristics. In confirmatory factor analysis, goodness-of-fit values are present, indicating that the fit indices of the developed model are mostly above the acceptable threshold. Differentiation and validity results were also examined, leading to the conclusion that the structure of our study is reliable, as the factor values align with the criteria.