We have rich food traditions in the Nordic countries and food culture is playing an ever-increasing role – also when we travel. A recent study of ours makes it clear that we are adventurous when it comes to local food – authentic food and local produce is gaining popularity for Nordic travelers.
In a study amongst a panel of over 2,000 consumers from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, we investigated how important food, cooking, and new recipes are to Nordic people. First of all, the study painted a clear picture of us Nordic people being an enthusiastic and gastronomically curious group, across age, gender and socio-economic circumstances.
A second point is that food means a lot when we pack our bags and venture beyond our national borders as travelers. On average, across the Nordic countries, 64% believe that food is an important part of a vacation (to some extent, a great extent, or a very great extent). The Swedes are the most enthusiastic with an impressive 69% of respondents answering that food is a vital part of their vacation. They are closely followed by the Finns (66%), and Norwegians (65%), while well over half (56%) of the Danes assign importance to food.
It’s quite interesting that food and food experiences constitute such a big part of being on vacation for Nordic people. In fact, food has the ability to influence the overall perception of the vacation and create strong links to experiences and memories. The reason for this is most likely that food often involves all senses – and involving scent, touch, taste, and vision in turn strengthens the entire memory of an experience.
Skipping McDonald’s and seeking out local dishes
More and more travelers seem to seek out authentic, local food experiences while on vacation – it’s simply less interesting or memorable to visit a McDonald’s or a Starbucks that you can find almost anywhere in the world. The encounter with local ingredients, markets with homegrown produce, and exotic dishes from the area provides a feeling of a much more true and special travel experience.
Our study shows that local food and food experiences are important for more than half of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish travelers. Here Danish and Norwegian travelers actually lead the way with more than 60% preferring local food and produce. In other words; if local restaurants in, say Portugal, want more Nordic guests, highlighting local ingredients on the menu or telling the story behind local dishes definitely won’t hurt.
Want to learn more?
If you are interested in learning more, you are very welcome to read our whitepaper RIGHT HERE.
Or contact our Insights & Data Senior Executive Dennis Grauslund, who is happy to share more details about our survey. You can write him at dgr@related.dk
TIP: We are also hosting a webinar in a few months’ time. We will share more, when the date is final!
