Food can play a fundamental role in tourists’ perception and experience of the destinations they visit. Culinary tourism is a highly significant segment of the tourism market and a wide array of sectors benefit from its development. However, it is important to note the challenges and issues that arise from a growing human population and its quest to satisfy its need to experience the traditional, the novel and the niche in terms of food consumption. The United Nations have been consistently flagging, since 2006, that animal-derived produce has major impacts on the environment as CO2 emissions resulting from animal agriculture have been identified as critically significant. From a health perspective, products of animal origin have been linked to a wide ranging set of harmful conditions including cancer and heart disease. From an ethical perspective, the industrial approach applied to using animals for food raises many ethical issues. The aim of this paper is to present a conceptual framework applied to the role of food on tourists’ perception and experience of place in line with the environmental/health/ethical issues linked to culinary products derived from animal agriculture
