Tourism and Local Food and Beverages Consumption : The case of Mazandaran Province, North of Iran

The purpose of this research was studying the effect of motivational factors on local food consumption from the domestic tourists' point of view. This research focuses on the tourists interested in local food as an attraction. It contributes to the development of food and presents a more thorough view of the tourists' behavior. The variety of climate, geography, and subcultures causes the variety of food, although this important item has been ignored as a tourism attraction in Iran.The research methodology employed in the present research was descriptive. The population was selected from six restaurants in the North of Iran. By the way; the number of 380 questionnaires according to cluster and simple random sampling was filled out by participants. The data gathered through the questionnaire were analyzed via SPSS. The results of the research revealed that there was a meaningful relationship between the local food consumption and all factors under the study in the North of Iran as a tourism destination. The data analysis methods used in this study were Chi-square, T-Test, Freidman and measure of frequency. Based on the findings of this research food has a great influence on attracting tourists to a destination from the domestic tourists' point of view.Validerat; 20120417 (marikav