Browsing by Author "Fernando, P.W.T.A."

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    Identify the Factors Influence on Purchase Intention of Local Foods by Foreign Tourists in Coastal Area in Sri Lanka
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Fernando, P.W.T.A.
    astronomic tourism is a rapidly growing industry in global and Sri Lanka also has started paying attention on this segment. As a country which owns rich resources such as unique and authentic traditional food Sri Lanka can develop and promote gastronomy tourism concepts easily. This research mainly aimed to identify the inbound tourists' perception on local foods and to identify the factors that might influence on local food choice of inbound tourists in coastal area in Sri Lanka. Further the study identified food vendors perception on local food as a tourism product. The analysis mainly based on the primary data collected by the author. The sample size were 160 tourists visited South coast and East coast as well as 15 local food vendors in South coast and East coast. Convenience sampling used to selection of tourists and purposive sampling technique were applied for select local food vendors and cluster sampling was applied for sampling locations. Data were collected from South coast and East coast. Primary data were collected by distributing structured questionnaires among tourists visited. In-depth interviews were conducted to collect data from vendors. Confirmatory factor analysis employed for quantitative data while thematic and descriptive analysis were employed for qualitative data. Based on the study there were potentiality to promote local food. Socio demographic, motivational and psychological factors were influenced on purchase intention of local food by tourists. Government involvement in promoting local food should be increased in order to grab more tourists. The environment of restaurants should be familiar to international tourists while maintain authentic features of the restaurants. Further tourists were willing to have mild spicy varieties of food and healthy authentic local food. The study further discussed the theoretical and managerial implication of findings while providing suggestions to promote local food to the foreign tourists. Key words: Local Food, Purchase Intention, Vendor's Perception
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    Identify the Factors Influence on Purchase Intention of Local Foods by Foreign Tourists in Coastal Area in Sri Lanka
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2020) Fernando, P.W.T.A.; Peiris, H.R.N.; Karunarathne, A.C.I.D.; Marasinghe, M.G.A.
    Sri Lanka is well-known for unique and authentic traditional food varieties and they have become one of the key attractions in tourism over the years. Recently, many initiatives have been taken at different levels contributing to develop and to promote gastronomy tourism. Accordingly, this study was aimed at identifying the inbound tourists’ perception of local foods and to identify the factors that influence local food choice of inbound tourists in the coastal area of Sri Lanka. Primary data were collected from 160 tourists on the South and East coast distributing a structured questionnaire using convenience sampling. Further, in-depth interviews were carried out interviewing 15 local food vendors using purposive sampling. Confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistics, and thematic analysis were employed to analyse the data. Results revealed that there is a high potential for local food to promote gastronomy tourism in the country. Further, socio-demographic, motivational, and psychological factors were influenced on the local food purchasing intention of tourists. The purchase intention of inbound tourists in the Sri Lankan context was not affected by sensory appeal and new taste (under the motivational and psychological factors). The study showed that the promotion of local food depends on government involvement whereas a strategic marketing campaign sould be used to bring traditional local food to the international level. Restaurant environment should be familiar to international tourists while maintaining the authentic features of the restaurants. Moreover, tourists were willing to have mild spicy varieties of food and healthy authentic local food. Further, this study directs future researchers to investigate the local food vendors’ perception of local food as a tourism product and tourists’ intention specifically on Ayurveda food in Sri Lanka. Keywords: Gastronomy tourism, Local food, Purchase intention, Vendor’s perception