The Effect of Culinary Tourism Experience on Customer-Based Brand Equity in the Egyptian Tourism Destination

Food has motivated many people to travel, moreover, it is also considered a vital component of any tourism experience. Food is now listed in the World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism) as one of the components of cultural tourism, implying that food is representative of the destination’s culture. The expression culinary tourism was recently used to point to a type of tourism that focuses on the food of the destination as a main attraction resource. The UN Tourism has considered culinary tourism as one of the main factors that contribute to the development of tourism destinations.
Tourism destinations can be competitive when they use their unique and distinguished resources to create a remarkable competitive advantage. Subsequently, there is nothing more distinctive than the foods and cuisines that are produced locally in each destination to be used as its competitive advantage.
Egypt is one of the countries that is known for its tasty and distinctive food and food traditions. Recently, tour operators tended to include a visit to Khan El Khalili in all Cairo schedules for tourists to enjoy authentic food and its delicious taste. Consequently, this study focuses on studying the effect of culinary tourism experience in Egypt and Customer-Based Brand Equity for the Tourism Destination CBBETD. The model of CBBETD focuses on measuring the main factors of the model (Destination Brand Awareness, Destination Brand Image, Destination Brand Quality, and Destination Brand Loyalty) from the tourist’s perspective.