Closing the gap in Australia's food culture
Tasmanian chef, food critic and journalist Rodney Dunn says Tasmania shouldn't shy away from delivering an 'authentic' food experience to Australian tourists.
Rodney Dunn runs the Agrarian Kitchen cooking school in the Derwent Valley and often caters for international tourists travelling to Tasmania to explore it's food and wine culture.
In November this year 80 international food and wine writers, bloggers and opinion influencers will come to Australia as part of Tourism Australia's Restaurant Australia campaign.
Andreas Clark from Wine Australia says research undertaken by Tourism Australia has found a gap in the perceptions between travellers who had been to Australia and those who hadn't.
"Those who had been here walked away thinking the Australian food and wine offering is as good as France, as good as Italy.
"So there's a big campaign to try and close that gap," Andreas Clark said.
"People are increasingly travelling on their bellies and on their palates.
"Food and wine is a driver for inbound tourism."
The Tasmanian Government has backed the strategy to the tune of $350,000 so that all 80 visitors will re-group in Tasmania at the end of their national tour.
Premier Will Hodgman says up to 20 per cent of inbound tourists are looking to experience Tasmanian food and wine.
He hopes the industry will underpin their Agri-growth strategy, which aims to grow the value of Tasmanian farm gate produce ten fold by 2050.
"We've got competitive strengths we've got to promote better and invest in.
"We've set the target of getting one and a half million visitors to the state each year.
"That's a bold target but is certainly achievable", he said.
In fact it was the food culture that lured Rodney Dunn and his wife Severine Demanet to set up the cooking school in Tasmania.
He agrees that jobs will come from food tourism.
"I think it's the key to the whole jigsaw puzzle.
"I think as a state there's huge potential there for bringing people here.
"There are definitely ways other tourism experiences can link in with this and grow the whole sector."
Mr Dunn does suggest though that the Tasmanian food experience needs to be an authentic one.
"Being honest, no bells and whistle's.
"Take them out on some fishing boats, take them to some farms, really get them immersed in what we really do.
"That's the thing that quite often stops that farm gate experience from happening.
"People think 'what I do, I just grow some 'stuff'', not realising that there is a whole group of people out there that want to know where their food comes from.
"They want to meet the farmer, see the produce at it's source.
"If we can leverage that more then I think we are on a winner", he said.
Source: ABC news - 17th July 2014
