Culinary Storytelling About the Local Cuisine of Phitsanulok, Thailand

Abstract

Culinary tourism is part of cultural capital that could generate income for local communities if well developed. Persuasive media, presented in various ways, plays a vital role in this development. The objective of this research, to create media with interesting and informative content to persuade foreign tourists to explore local Phitsanulok cuisine. This information was in-depth interviews that were conducted with 32 government tourism officials, 9 Chief Executives of the Sub-district Administrative Organization, 2 French nationals who were qualified chefs, and other foreigners resident in the Province. The second stage included the design and production plans for media to be developed highlighting and presenting local cuisine from each of the nine districts. The planned media was refined under the theme “Phitsanulok, a culinary delight.” This process included two French nationals who were residents in the Province who had created a unique genre of Thai Chinese fusion food. The media were focused on storytelling by these and other residents who were local participants in the culinary scene in Phitsanulok Province, intending to provide a first-hand account of the local traditional cuisine, and the enhanced genre provided by the French chefs. These stories were evaluated by 7 academicians, 3 media experts, and 3 tourism entrepreneurs, also taking into account feedback and responses from 275 social network users. This showed that Phitsanulok has the potential to be developed into a cultural city, scoring 8.13 based on the UNESCO City of Gastronomy project accreditation guidelines.