Urban food markets in the context of a tourist attraction - La Boqueria market in Barcelona, Spain

Abstract

In the last few decades, local governments have looked at developing their cities to increase their attractiveness for tourism consumption. Urban and tourism planners have focused their attention on adapting different local attractions to target the tourist visit and provide them with recreation and entertainment. By consuming locally sourced traditional or farmed products, tourists adopt the values associated with local identity codes. This experience allows tourists to enjoy the city more as if they were local citizens. In this sense, one method of behaving as a local is to visit a food market. This study investigates the attributes that affect tourist satisfaction in relation to food market visits and explores whether tourists intend to revisit these food halls. Based on a survey relating to La Boqueria, currently one of the most renowned food markets in Barcelona, three factors were identified: physical environment, location and accessibility, and price. The results reveal that physical environment is an important tourist satisfaction predictor, while price and location and accessibility influence revisit behaviour. The results also suggest differences between first-time visitors and repeat visitors related to attributes perception, while there is no statistically important difference on the path level.