Exploring the Essence of Gastronomic Tourism and Its Distribution Channels in Greece

Culinary culture has always been the longest-surviving part of a culture and tradition since it reflects daily life styles, religious beliefs, habits, traditions and customs. Gastronomy tourism has become a major and rapidly growing component of the attractiveness of tourism destination in recent years, as it is another treasure of cultural heritage. Greece boasts a fascinating gastronomic culture, thanks to a plethora of artisanal products, distinctive regional cuisines of over 4000 years of cultural heritage. This paper explores the basic principles of gastronomic tourism and investigates the way Greek Gastronomic tourism should be managed, in cooperation and coordination with both public and private tourism stakeholders, through carefully designed promotional activities in a variety of distribution channels.