Olive oil tourism experiences: Effects on quality of life and behavioural intentions

Abstract

Gastronomic tourism experiences are revealed as a response to a rural environment that needs to bet on economic diversification and to meet an evolving tourist demand. This new tourist does not only seek to enjoy himself/herself when travelling, but also find personal enrichment. In addition, the olive oil culture represents an important diversification opportunity for the Spanish tourist offer. Therefore, the objective of this work is focused on analysing how motivational factors, involvement with the gastronomic product and the intention to engage in related tourist experiences can generate positive impacts on the tourist's perceived quality of life and on their behavioural intentions. This study is applied to the analysis of the potential of olive oil tourism in Spain. From an online survey, a sample of 690 individuals has been obtained. The results of this study confirm that the proposed model has a great capacity to predict the behaviour of the market in relation to the realisation of trips for the practice of experiences related to olive oil tourism. 77.9% of the behaviour of this variable comes from the influence of motivational factors, engagement and quality of life.