South African Domestic Tourists and Local Foods: Measuring the Four Dimensions of the Experience Economy

Despite South Africa adopting a new democratic dispensation 31 years ago, the country remains burdened by inequality, unemployment and other social and economic struggles. The South African White Paper on the Development and Promotion of Tourism in South Africa calls for leveraging tourism to drive environmental preservation, cultural enrichment, and economic progress. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to develop local food tourism. The aim of this research was to establish the effect of local food and food-related experiences on local tourists’ experiences. Even though the four classic Experience Economy dimensions proposed by Pine and Gilmore, namely Entertainment, Education, Escapism and Aesthetics, were applied, the researchers took note of the newly added Entrepreneurial dimension by Chirakranont and Sunanta. Data was collected during December 2024; of the 276 valid responses, 97.5% indicated that they always/sometimes search for local foods when travelling locally. The Sweet-spot effect was not identified for any of the respondents, nor did any of the four dimensions achieve a score close to five on the 5-point Likert scale for Agreement. There appears to be a missed opportunity, as the lower-than-ideal experience dimension results of the EE model indicated that local food entrepreneurs are still not capitalising on their niche local foods and offerings.