GASTRONOMY OF RELIGIOUS TOURISM: OVERVIEW AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA

A statistic report from Grand View Research estimated a substantial expenditure of approximately 207.8 billion USD worldwide in religious tourism by 2027. The food industry in religious tourism represents a recent international economic and political development that has gained increasing importance, especially for developing countries, particularly those in Asia. Mapping the topic of gastronomy in religious tourism inside previous studies and creating a new concept map about those two topics. This study gathered the paper's metadata from the Scopus website. There were 55 studies used and being analyzed using the bibliometric method. This study used Biblioshiny and Vosviewer software to analyze the data. The analysis was divided into two, metric analysis and content analysis. The content analysis used a systematic literature review with a PRISMA flowchart to collect and screen the data sample. The were 45 samples used for content analysis using systematic literature review (SLR). The number of papers published on a certain topic did not influence the number of citations received. On the other hand, the result of the content analysis found that words frequently used in keywords of previous papers that were closely connected to the word gastronomy were food tourism, culinary tourism, satisfaction, cooking class, halal food, tapas, and monasteries. Gastronomy was closely related to food, halal, and monasteries. Gastronomy also included study in preparing food through a cooking class, especially related to preparing halal food. Monasteries were the places that could influence cuisine in the past through religious teachings in the past centuries. Tapas was a small appetizer from Spanish that was influenced by culture and closely related to gastronomy. The practical implication of this study was to be hoped to become a reference for authorities to focus more on the local culture that shapes the local dish as a positive point of tourist attraction. The novelty of this study is that no previous study observed the aspect of gastronomy that affects local tourist attractions and the concept of gastronomy and dishes. Further study is to observe more about the factors inside gastronomy that could influence the determinant intention of people to visit religious heritage. It would be wise to use a questionnaire in collecting the data to observe the cause-effect relationship between several factors inside gastronomy.