Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate consumer perception and importance of food tourism properties and performance of the properties in Sangju province of Gyeongsangbuk-do. The study has found that persons who have food tourism experiences (75 persons, 50.7%) had slightly more than not experience persons (72 persons, 48.6%). Additionally, most of the respondents were usually satisfied with the local foods. Also, it was found that food tourism had been taken 1-2 times per 6 months (48 persons, 64.0%) on average, and 135 persons (91.2%) had intention of experiencing food tourism. According to the result of Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) on consumers' food tourism properties, high importance was on 'There are attractive landscapes.' (4.52 +/- 0.56), 'Accommodations with reasonable price.' (4.18 +/- 0.80), and 'The food of the area is famous.' (4.15 +/- 0.73); and the properties such as 'There are local specialty shops or markets selling local produce.' (3.03 +/- 0.83), 'The climate is temperate.' (3.03 +/- 0.87), and 'There are attractive landscapes.' (3.02 +/- 0.98) showed average performance. A factor analysis about consumers' importances to the food tourism properties shows that the factors were divided into four kinds and each of the factors were named as 'convenience-stable propensity', 'valued-oriented propensity', 'adventurous-aggressive propensity' and 'traditional-active propensity'. Variance ratios of each factor were 22.319%, 10.286%, 8.723% and 6.239%, respectively. According to the result of a reliability analysis, Cronbach's alpha value was 0.8621, implying that reliability of each item was very high. Therefore, it is considered that development of food tourism products and promotion strategies therefore should be designed based on the importance of food tourism properties hereafter.

• Keywords: food tourism; district; IPA; factor analysis