The Impact of Local Food Consumption Value on Tourists’ Behavioral Intention: The Case of Oramanat Rural Tourism Areas in Kurdistan Province

In order to develop rural tourism, the behavior of tourists should be studied. Since understanding tourists' behavior leads to providing scientific foundations for tourism marketing and management and increasing its efficiency. The main purpose present study was to investigate the effect of local food consumption value theory on behavioral intention of tourist through the mediating role of food destination image. The statistical population consisted of tourists (N= 1200) who visited Oramanat rural areas in spring and summer of 2019 and were served local foods. Using Krejcie and Morgan table and convenient and simple random sampling method, 295 tourists were selected as the samples. The data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire which its validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (0.708 - 0.838). Collected data analyzed by partial least squares method (PLS) of structural equation modeling. Findings showed that based on consumption value theory, tourists’ experience of local food had a positive and significant effect on their attitude towards local food, and all aspects of consumption value theory including health value, taste and quality value, price value, emotional value, social value, and epistemic value had significant positive effects on attitude. These values accounted for 61.7% of the variation in attitude toward local food. In addition, the results indicated that the attitude toward local foods have influenced tourists' behavioral intentions through the mediating role of the food tourism image.