An Investigation of the factors influencing local food demand in attracting foodies (A Case Study: Tabriz City)

Eating is a physical need as well as a cultural and social activity. Tourists' demand for local food occurs at different levels of needs. Therefore, there is a difference in how tourists react to the consumption of local food. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting local food demand in attracting food foodies in order to segment the tourism market according to the needs of tourists interested in local food as an attraction. In this study, to investigate the factors affecting local food demand in attracting foodies, a researcher-made questionnaire with 26 indicators and a Likert scale was prepared and distributed among tourists in the city in the summer of 1398 and the method of selecting samples by random sampling was available and 100 questionnaires were completed within a month, of which 85 were appropriate for use; The reliability and validity of the questionnaires were calculated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and analyzed by structural equation modeling with least squares (PLS-SEM) approach. The model variables of the study were extracted from the summary of previous studies. The results showed that in the model of factors affecting local food demand in attracting foodies, motivational factors, demographic factors and psychological factors with values of path coefficients of 0.30, 0.613, 0.338, respectively, and local food demand with path coefficient values. 0.252 is positive in all hypotheses and indicates a direct effect on latent dependent variables.