02 Using the Guidelines

The national guidelines have been developed to guide destination developers in rural and remote destinations in the process of preparing for, researching, and planning a culinary tourism strategy.

The guidelines are structured into four main components that can be used chronologically or as independent pieces. The components of the guidelines are guides to help you in assessing your readiness, setting goals and objectives, approaching strategy development, developing your culinary tourism strategy, and planning for implementation.

The contents of each component are not exhaustive nor prescriptive. Rather, the guidelines are a collection of learnings, good practices, and suggestions that you can leverage to develop your culinary tourism strategy.

As you work your way through the guidelines, keep your local context, intentions for culinary tourism development, the needs of your stakeholders, and previous tourism development work top of mind. Rural and remote destinations have the unique opportunity to leverage their unique settings and landscapes, healthy natural environments, rich histories and cultural heritage, agricultural traditions, and diverse communities of Indigenous Peoples, historic settler, and newcomers that live or have historically lived in the destination to grow culinary tourism.

A range of resources are included in references & resources to support you in understanding and pursuing culinary tourism strategy development.