Perception and attitudes of tourism students on food consumption and waste

The aim of this research is to determine the underlying causes of food waste, to analyze the results it reveals and to reveal what can be done to prevent waste. This study is carried out with the aim of drawing attention to the size and importance of food waste. The data obtained is important in order to help prevent waste. This research has been considered and carried out in terms of raising awareness for the reduction of unconscious consumption and food waste. Considering that food consumption and food waste in Turkey are more concentrated in the regions where tourism enterprises are concentrated and considering the number of tourism enterprises in our country, the amount of food waste reaches uncalculated levels. For this purpose, students who are studying tourism because they are more associated with tourism enterprises have been designated as the working universe.Face-to-face surveys were conducted on students studying tourism at different levels of education from all regions of Turkey, resulting in 461 available surveys.The research was carried out with quantitative research methods.Research data were collected by easy sampling technique between December 2019 and June 2020. Non-random (Mann Whitney/U and Kruskal/Wallis tests) analyses were performed because the data collected from the participants was not distributed normally. According to the results of the research, significant differences were found between the age and gender of participants and their attitude to waste. However, a significant difference was found between some dimensions of food consumption and waste in terms of educational degrees and variables of working status in tourism enterprises. As part of the results obtained, a number of recommendations were presented to consumers and industry practitioners.