Olives and Touristic Experiences: The Case of the Olive Tree and Olive Oil Museum

Introduction

Gastronomy is currently understood as one of the main motivations of tourists for their destination selection. The concept of gastronomic tourism involves a strong experiential dimension and a connection with the local culture of the regions. Indeed, gastronomy has become an indispensable element in knowing and understanding the culture and lifestyle of a territory, so it encompasses a set of traditional values associated with new trends in tourism, such as respect for culture and tradition, a healthy living style, authenticity, sustainability, and, above all, experience (UNWTO, 2012). In fact, food can be “considered as a reflection of the culture of a country and its people” (du Rand & Heath, 2006, p. 207).

Tourists look for connections and experiences that are rooted in their destinations (Boyle, 2004). They are increasingly sophisticated, making the choice of the destination they visited part of their lifestyle and a way of expressing their identity (Morgan et al., 2004). Regional products and gastronomy stand out among the multiple characteristics that provide authenticity to a destination. “It is a destination’s food, people and places which make up its heritage and its character and which thereby provide a destination with its own authenticity” (Yeoman et al., 2007, p. 1135).

Inserted within gastronomic tourism, olive oil tourism is a relatively recent tourist segment, but it has been growing in the last decades all over the world, namely in Greece, Cyprus, Australia, Italy, and Spain, which translates to strong economic development in the rural regions where olive groves and mills are predominant. These structures, which in the past were only used to produce olive oil, have now taken on touristic functions, making these rural areas more dynamic. Indeed “the important role of olive oil mills as drivers of social development and structural change in municipalities (Mozas-Moral 2019), implies that the spaces occupied by agricultural cooperatives can be understood as a collective good” (Alonso & Gonzáles, 2021, p.176).

The practice of this type of tourism is strongly linked to the sustainable development of the rural areas and contributes to the enhancement and conservation of the unique identity of these places. This is accomplished through the promotion of traditional activities to tourists from urban areas who seek to enjoy unique and memorable experiences there (Elias & Barbero, 2017).

Olive tourism has the potential to generate a considerable number of experiences contextualized in the territory, from tastings and harvesting to massages with olive oils. The profiles of tourists looking for these varied experiences may differ. When looking at the motivations for choosing olive oil tourism activities, Fernández et al. (2022), in a study conducted at the Spanish regions of Andalusia and Extremadura, segmented the olive oil tourists into four main groups. The first group was the Healthy Olive Oil Tourists, whose “main motivation [in] choosing olive oil tourism is to engage in activities that are beneficial to their health [and] they do not tend to spend the night away from home during their trip,” Fernández et al. (2022, p. 3). The second group identified by the authors was the Olive Oil Flavours Hunter Tourists, who were mainly motivated to learn about the different varieties of olive oil. This group also showed a propensity to spend a night way during the visit to the olive oil region. The third segment, which the authors labeled as Designation of Origin Olive Oil Tourists, were motivated to explore the area of a Designation of Origin. “These are tourists who spend at least one night away from home (72%) and has [sic] the highest level of income in excess of €1800,” Fernández et al. (2022, p. 3). Finally, the fourth segment, labeled Extra Virgin Olive Oil Tourists, is “motivated by a desire to learn about the taste properties of EVOO (69.2%) and spend at least one night away from home, but in this case, they do so in the same city where the company offering the olive oil tourism activities that they have carried out is located (70%),” Fernández et al. (2022, p. 4).