Traveling to eat: Food tourism grows in the USA
NEW YORK : Surrounded by imported pasta and grains, Carol Berger inhales deeply, raises her arms and shuts her eyes in semireligious appreciation.
Look at that beautiful prosciutto over there, she sighs, pointing at a glass case filled with jewel-tone meats, while others on the guided tasting tour shuffle into the shop to gape at a large jar of black truffles.
The expedition through the specialty shops of Manhattans Chelsea Market is just one stop on the Florida residents culinary ramble through New York City and she is not alone.
Nationwide, an increasing number of vacationers are basing their travel around food and wine and a study released Wednesday says that 27 million Americans have made culinary activities a part of their travels within the last three years.
It is something that really took off in the past five years or so, said Cathy Keefe, the manager of media relations for the Travel Industry Association of America, which helped pay for the study along with Gourmet magazine and other organizations.
Of the 160 million U.S. residents who travel for leisure, about 1 in 6 have recently taken a food tour, enrolled in a cooking class, toured a winery or otherwise participated in culinary activities as part of a vacation, according to the study.
Nearly half of that group took a trip or chose a destination because of the food and wine activities they would find there.
Walking from a bread bakery toward a wholesale seafood shop across the way, Berger, a payroll tax accountant from Del Ray Beach, Fla., said her trip to New York planned with a group of foodie friends she calls her dinner club was motivated by food.
We come to New York to do restaurants, she said, recounting one particularly eye opening experience: It was the first time I tried sea urchin, and it was fabulous.
New York state is one of the most popular destinations for food travel, outdone only by California and Florida, according to the TIA study.
For Carmen Botez, that crush of interest became apparent last year, when the 29 year old found herself essentially drafted into becoming a tour guide. After launching a Web magazine offering a virtual chocolate tour of New York, Botez was deluged by hundreds of requests for the real thing. She has since launched her own company, New York Chocolate Tours, which charges visitors $70 apiece for a tasting tour of the citys high end sweets shops.
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Courtesy of grouptravelblog.com
Chitra Mogul
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