Slow Food and Food Tourism: Foça Earth Market

Being an active Slow Food point and carrying out the regulations and principles of Slow Food create a certain attraction for destinations. The main reason behind this is that Slow Food is a worldwide-recognized organization and it creates an attraction point for tourists with its support to sustainable local production besides offering cultural experiences, providing ethical tourism mobility and protecting the local identity. This study discusses the effects of Slow Food on the destination's food culture and food production as well as the touristic attraction it creates in the context of food tourism. For this purpose, Earth Markets, which are solid applications of Slow Food, are investigated through Foça Earth Market. Foça is a major touristic destination. Therefore, it is a perfect example for investigating the effects of Slow Food principles on a destination. The study's objective is to show how the application of Earth Markets create an attraction and at the same time protects both the local producers and the local values of the destination in order to obtain a balanced result for the touristic activities, sustainability and economic benefits.