Share your food travel pictures on this World Food Travel Day

World food travel association looks towards bright future post pandemic

By | Sun 18 Apr 2021

Happy World Food Travel Day!

As we sit at home ordering food delivered to our door from our favourite comfort food restaurant, or attempting to make something edible of our pantry scraps, it may seem a bit odd to be thinking of food and travel. Yet here we are.

World Food Travel Day celebrates the reason to travel to experience our world’s culinary cultures. The day was first launched in 2019 by the World Food Travel Association and is designed to bring awareness to both consumers and trade in support of the association’s mission to preserve and promote culinary cultures through hospitality and tourism.

“The future of the gastronomy tourism industry is bright, despite the effect of the pandemic,” said Erik Wolf, the founder of World Food Travel Association. “Pandemics end eventually, and tourism will resume. While consumers have been in lockdown, we have been cooking at home, exploring traditional recipes and speaking with family, reading old cookbooks, discovering new and nearby ingredients, etc. In many ways, the pandemic helped to put the spotlight on and strengthen local food economies, all around the world. The recent issues of the triple bottom line (people, planet and profit) in the sustainability discussions have also given renewed interest to culinary cultures. Businesses have been forced to learn new ways to do business, largely because of consumer opinion and demand. Change is always hard, but in this case, it is change for the better. We are advancing the discussion of the future of our industry, and especially sustainability within gastronomy tourism, at our FoodTreX Global Summit, as well as our monthly Food Travel Talk TV shows, podcasts and national reports”.

“As for my part, as the association’s ambassador of Thailand,” said Max Thammaraks, “I am trying to match the association to the right government authorities of Thailand, working closely with decision makers at the TAT and a few other governments head projects.  I think we share the same vision about promoting the true and authentic local experiences.  We have so much beauty and diversities in our food, culture and natural resources.”

This year, the association is asking supporters to feature your favourite local food and beverage experiences that visitors to your area would love. There are easy steps to participate:

Post photos, videos and stories from a favurite food or drink experience you had while travelling.

Use the #WorldFoodTravelDay hashtag and tag @worldfoodtravelassn on Instagram and @WorldFoodTravel on Twitter or Facebook so the association can like and share your posts.