Authenticity and commercialisation: a dialogical, autoethnographic exploration of the tensions in gastrotourism

Gastrotourism is a significant revenue-generator worldwide and relates to the deliberate seeking-out of experiences related to eating and drinking during travel by tourists. Taking in the cultural, social and personal dimensions related to gastrotourism, this di-alogical, conversational autoethnography allows the personal stories of the two authors to emerge, contextualised in the body of theory surrounding this particular topic. Methodologically, the autoethnographic lens allows for the exploration of personal in-sights that would not necessarily be brought to the fore through more traditional re-search methods and follows the food-consumption experiences of two individual trav-ellers seeking authenticity in their personal journeys. The lived encounters of the two researchers during trips across the European continent and beyond are detailed, and reveal such findings as the importance of authenticity, national identity and culinary heritage in gastrotourism. Thus, in connecting with this study, the reader can engage with a multi-faceted, polysemous and emotionally stimulating, autoethnographic ex-planation at the interface between consumer behaviour and gastrotourism.