A qualitative study on restaurant configurations in tourism destinations: The case of Cappadocia

The purpose of this research is to discover how distinct restaurant configurations emerge in a tourism destination with a particular attention to understanding the role of tourism and tourist behavior in this emergence. With this aim, the fundamental questions of the study are whether: • different restaurant practices emerge in a destination where dominance of a certain type of tourism exists. • these practices lead to emergence of distinct restaurant configurations. • tourist behavior plays a key role in emergence of restaurant configurations. If it does, is it possible to understand its role? • it is possible to define the configurations in reference to their specific attributes. Between June - November 2014 the research was conducted in Cappadocia Region which includes Ürgüp, Uçhisar, Avanos, Göreme, Derinkuyu and Kaymaklı territories. In this context research design was determined as a single case with embedded units. The study took a qualitative research approach in which semi-structured interviews and document analysis were employed as major data collection techniques whereas content analysis was the primary method of analyzing the qualitative data. In this context, the research was constituted by five main successive and complementary stages. The first four stages were as follows: the analysis of documents on the relationship between gastronomy and tourism in Turkey, the analysis of documents on the relationship between gastronomy and tourism in Cappadocia, analysis of the websites and the promotional materials pertaining to Cappadocia region, and interviews with tourism stakeholders in the region. As the fifth stage of the research model, the data were content analyzed following each stage of data collection. In an effort to form the basis of primary study findings, semi-structured interviews were conducted between 21th and 26th July 2014 with 12 tourism stakeholders based on voluntariness. The sample included professional tourist guides, travel agency officials, brand manager of culture and tourism directorate, faculty members, chefs, presidents of the professional associations, and hotel managers. The findings of the study indicated that conceptual structure of restaurant configurations consisted of four main categories and nineteen subcategories. It was understood that diversity of tourists' nationalities, travel motivations, modes of travel, type of accommodation, amount of expenditure and purchasing behavior were the subcategories of the main category of "tourist profile and travel behavior". Organizing daily tours in the region, rigidity of tour programs, cost and sales considerations constituted the main category of "the dominant tourism mode". The third main category was "tourist behavior towards local gastronomy" and its subcategories emerged as information search behaviors, sampling local cuisine, and consumption of local gastronomic tourism products. Finally, target market selection, cost considerations, adaptation, authentic atmosphere, local presentation, and restaurant configurations have been identified as the sub-categories of "practices and configurations of restaurants". Five distinct restaurant configurations emerged in Cappadocia Region and those were hotel restaurants, group restaurants, boutique restaurants, ethnic restaurants, and kebab and pita restaurants. Hotel restaurants serve to package tour customers and their major attributes are open-buffet service and being located within the starred hotels. Group restaurants serve food for daily tour groups based on a special contract with travel agencies. Boutique restaurants are visited mainly by individual travelers with an intention to taste the local dishes, and serve food independently or within a boutique hotel. Ethnic restaurants rely on a specific national culture such as Japanese, Korean and Indian, and serve food that completely fits the tastes of the tourists coming from those cultures. Having a menu containing mostly pita, meat kebabs or doner kebab, and located mostly in the city center, pita and kebab restaurants are the places where mainly local people eat. The findings of the research lead to the following implications: tourists' nationalities and modes of travel are primary determinants of profiles and behaviors of tourists visiting the region, and those two variables also affect the other travel behaviors such as type of accommodation, amount of expenditure and purchasing behavior; daily tours are the most common tourism practice in the region, lunch time is kept very short and insufficient in those tours. In a context where tourists' nationality, modes of travel, and common tourism practice interact, tourist behaviors towards local gastronomy differ (for instance individual tourists are more interested in local gastronomy than package travelers). In relation to tourists' behaviors towards local gastronomy, the practices such as selection of target markets, intensity of cost considerations, adaptation versus local presentation, and authentic atmosphere differ among restaurants. As a result, different type of practices lead to emergence of distinct restaurant configurations including hotel and group restaurants where package travelers are the target markets, cost considerations are highly intense, adaptation to tourists' tastes is major orientation rather than local presentation, and a kind of staged authenticity is the main attribute of atmosphere; ethnic restaurants where Korean, Japanese or Indian tourists are targeted and an ethnic atmosphere which reflects those cultures is presented; boutique restaurants where the target market is individual travelers, the cost considerations are minimum, and local food is served by local people in a local atmosphere; pita and kebab restaurants where local people consume traditional pita and kebab dishes. Within the framework of qualitative research method, it is considered that this dissertation contributes to the related literature firstly by uncovering restaurant practices and distinct restaurant configurations caused by these practices referring to the opinions of stakeholders, and secondly by presenting the findings indicating the effects of tourism and tourist behaviors on emergence of distinct restaurant configurations. Keywords: Gastronomy, Local Food, Restaurant, Restaurant Configurations, Cappadocia, Qualitative Research.