ABSTRACT
This chapter offers how culinary mapping can be used as a tool to plan gastronomic tourism in a specific region. It explores how culinary mapping can be used as a tool when planning gastronomic tourism. Culinary mapping can be used as a tool by the local inhabitants and tour operators to market and showcase products, places and people. Culinary mapping has been used to identify and promote culinary cultures in countries as diverse as the United States, Spain, Thailand, Peru, Japan, Malaysia, and Korea. A systematic approach is applied in culinary mapping when identifying and recording culinary resources, using Geographic Information Systems, to support a more rigorous evidence-based approach to planning culinary tourism. A culinary route or itinerary can be created for gastronomic tourism as a niche attraction in a region through the process of culinary mapping. The identity mapping sources data through a review of existing literature, websites, and census data of the region.
