ABSTRACT
Phuket has been the renowned tourist destination in Thailand for decades, mostly due to beautiful seascape and the beach life. However, the city centre had not fully been benefited from the tourism industry. In order to promote the City of Phuket, the cultural tourism has been escalated especially the food and eating culture that involved in distinctive ethnic group of Peranakan. In 2016, the city was announced as UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy and therefore, the project has been established. The project has not only conducted the research and development on nutrition of local recipes, but also studied cultural value of the local cuisine both to the local people and the tourists from the perception and recognition analysis, which leads to the definition of its ‘identity and uniqueness’ as by the authors. The outcomes of the study were strategies to develop different categorized groups of food to create new tourism experience, such as the design directions and suggestions for restaurants, food manufacturers and street food vendors through the built environment, packaging and the presentation of the food.
