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The objective of this study was to expound on the importance of food tourism as an important tourism sub-sector in which the figure of the chef has become an important marketing tool for destinations. Celebrity chefs enjoy worldwide renown and their image contributes to a destination’s tourism potential. A tourism website can act as the tourism window to the country by providing all the necessary travel information necessary for planning the trip. It also serves to market the country by highlighting its attractions, covering all sectors including food tourism. In terms of methodology, this article analyzes the visibility of the figure of the chef and food tourism on South African Tourism website as a secondary source of data and insights. The results show a lack of visibility of chefs (and more generally, the absence of food tourism topics) on the website. The study recommends utilizing the website to enhance and valorize the role of food tourism and especially that of chefs in the country’s tourism sector to reflect its burgeoning potential and nature as well as its new-found importance for attracting tourists to destinations. By implication, it emphasizes the fact that chefs do matter in food tourism.

Food tourism is a growing phenomenon that is adding value to the tourism sector. While it can be recognised as a specific food tourism category, street food tourism has not been yet clearly conceptualised and much research remains to be done on this sub-sector. This paper presents an overview of issues relating to street food tourism from a global context. It proposes a definition of street food tourism and suggests strategies to enhance its development. The paper is based on secondary literature. It presents a South African case study which is based on data sourced from a number of websites. The ambition of this paper is to contribute to the expansion of food tourism literature and assist stakeholders in the sector to chart a way forward.

Tourism is currently a growing sector of the economy and its possible relevance in community development is acknowledged. Within tourism CBT has been advanced to counteract negative effects of mass tourism and as a strategy to facilitate disadvantaged community development. Food tourism is also on a growing trend. Literature related to food and catering in CBT is present however, a general framework of relationships between CBT development and food seems absent. Based on the relevance of these tourism forms this article, which is based on extant literature, aims to propose a relationship framework between CBT and food. The article advances that it is important to understand the various aspects of the relationship between CBT and food to enhance the chance of growing (scaling-up) CBT entities through the combined community-based food tourism (CBFT). Thus various issues relevant to this framework are mentioned such as matters related to food as a tourist attraction, to food production and selling, to food standards in CBT. Whilst not pretending to be fully comprehensive, the article advances the need to comprehend food in CBT from various angles.