The Sunday evening walking street in Chiang Mai in Thailand serves street food. - Photo from Wikimedia Commons
Malaysians and Singaporeans can’t resist good culinary experiences, to the point where they would even plan their holiday around it.
FOOD comes into thought for many Malaysians and Singaporeans when determining their travel destinations. A snap poll by travel metasearch site Wego revealed that almost 60% of 300 travellers from the region select their destinations based on local food experiences.
“In our region which is already so historically and culturally diverse, we appear to have an understanding of how food represents those culture in its own unique way and we as travellers, tend to take that with us in our exploration of the world at large,” said David Lai, Wego’s Singapore and Malaysia market development manager.
Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Europe leads the top culinary destinations choices.
“All these destinations are culturally impressive in themselves but also they have their own very distinctive food,” said Lai.
Lai added that Malaysians and Singaporeans in general, have a unique appreciation of culinary tourism that allow them to plan their travel around dining experiences.
Age is also a factor when it comes to food tourism. Almost all of those over the age of 35 (51% of the surveyed participants) said that they would decide their holiday based on food.
“Travellers under the age of 34 are not surprisingly driven by other factors to travel, although 15% of those between 25 and 34 did say that food could be a factor in their choices,” said Lai.
Of the split between men and women, all male respondents said they would select travel destinations based on culinary offerings, while 74% of women denied that food made a difference to their choices.
“Clearly Singaporean and Malaysian men consider food a pivotal and significant part of the overall travel experience,” said Lai.
