In what direction will food tourism be heading, and what will be on our plates in tourist foodie destinations in the year 2075? Will laboratory-grown meat be on the menu cards or rather authentic and pure Malaysian Peranakan dishes? Is the tourist offered an exquisite meal from the gardens of the royal family, accompanied by a bottle of wine that is priced no more than a sloppy £750 million, or will it be a home-cooked meal on the Faroe Islands with dry-salted whale blubber and whale beef with vegetables that you eat together with the fisherman’s family in a tiny island house that is constantly buffeted by the arctic winds? This book gives intriguing insights into what will be offered in various food destinations in approximately 50 years and explores how climate change, technology, and societal shifts reshape the industry.
Robots, Roots, Richness and Regeneration; four different pathways, that the editors/authors roll out for us, how this future of food tourism could look like.
Robots
The first scenario is called Dr Spock’s restaurant (Robots), here the authors present different science fiction scenarios, where, due to climate change, food no longer comes from the fields and the land but from the laboratory. Robots in the kitchen and walking with the dinner plates will ensure that a guest lacks nothing. Food science and technology are the key elements.
Roots
The second scenario is titled Roots, where the authors describe a future where tourists visit explicitly iconic visitor attractions to search for authentic food experiences, to indulge in nostalgia, and to look for places like they were in the good old past, back in 2025. All places have become scarcer and scarcer in the year 2075. Here everything centres around safeguarding local food and foodways.
Richness
In the third scenario, the authors investigate The Royal Mayfair (Richness). The chapters in this part research how the future will look like if, due to climate change, food tourism is only available for the rich and super wealthy. They can dive on luxurious tourist spots themselves for the last bottles of wine that are stored in a cool place on the bottom of the sea. What an ultimate tourism experience! Food tourism has, in these chapters, become nothing more than a narcissistic consumer’s playground, where it all centres around exclusivity, creativity and excellence. The rest of the population nags about being bored with mostly synthetic chlorella-based foods that even virtual glasses cannot make more attractive.
Regenerate
In the last scenario, a future is rolled out on us that the authors gave the title La Natura Food Trail (Regenerate), where food tourism is built around real food, health, small scale farming, slow food and well-being. In this scenario, a food tourist travels deliberately to a destination not only for the food but also to do something good for our tired earth so that the planet can become a healthy environment again. Home hospitality plays a key role in this scenario.
Is there something this book is lacking? Not really, but if I had to complain about something, then it would be about the multitude of choices that may face us in the future, potentially complicating life tremendously. For example, choosing between eating a jelly cube from my own body waste, drugs with all the necessary nutrients, udon noodles or a totally overpriced gold tomahawk steak. Oh, what the heck, I just take them all and pour myself, hallucinating about the future of food tourism, one of the last available glasses of wine!
All in all, an intriguing compilation of chapters and articles that give pause and valuable insights into how food tourism will be shaped in the coming 50 years, where the importance of technological innovation, sustainability and cultural preservation all play their important roles in shaping the future of a food tourist. No matter if the food tourist travels to Tuscany, Sweden, Japan, Malaysia, the Faroe Islands, London, Wadden Sea or simply puts on his virtual glasses.
