Making choices, that is to say, having to decide not to do something, is not my favourite hobby. For example, making this list with “only” 10 cities, “only” in Europe, make me feel I am passing on many attractive destinations. Hm. So, to limit this uneasy sensation, I will give myself a backdoor exit, I will call this list “the current selection of first 10 cities to be included in the Famous Flavours guides”.
Here’s the list. The making of the Famous Flavours guides of Paris and Amsterdam are underway, London should be next due to its nr 1 position of most travelled city destination, and Brussels gets priority because it’s the most practical destination for me to do on a short term.
1. Paris
2. London
3. Brussels
4. Rome
5. Barcelona
6. Dublin
7. Amsterdam
8. Istanbul
9. Madrid
10. Prague
My first reaction when thinking about to tourism, and people interested in culinary tourism related activities, would be to focus on “true tourists”, people travelling for pleasure alone. Yet when I think back at the times when I travelled for business (quite a bit in my IBM times), there was often some time to kill before or between appointments. And quick and pleasant culinary activities could just be a great past time. So the destinations mentioned below are important to keep in mind when considering the ordening of the destinations I will be working on. Helsinki comes as a bit of surprise, by the way.
Financial hubs and Meetings-Incentives-Congresses-Events tourism
Although 80% of inbound arrivals to cities are tourists, MICE travel (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) is increasingly important for cities, not only because of the higher per capita expenditure of MICE travellers, but also because of its promotional impact. From Dubai (4) to Tallinn (64) or Valencia (84), international events have helped to set cities firmly on the map of the world’s leading destinations. Investment in convention centres, hotels and travel infrastructure cannot be judged solely in terms of MICE activity, but instead as part of an integrated tourism strategy.
The globalisation of the world economy has also had a positive impact on city travel, especially with regard to global financial centres. Despite new technologies, the world financial centres of London and New York (ranked first and sixth respectively), far from dying out, have continued to attract more businesses, thus, increasing the amount of business travel to these financial clusters. Furthermore, other cities have followed suit, becoming important financial hubs. Shanghai (13), Hong Kong (5), Singapore (4) and Dubai (7) have entered the list of global financial hubs according to The Economist, alongside long-established powerhouse such as Tokyo (51), Zurich (55) or Geneva (98)
The 150 leading world destinations accounted for 27% of the global inbound tourism in terms of arrivals. Cities are the key driver of growth in the tourism industry, benefiting from the development of the air industry and the investment in infrastructure and iconic buildings. From Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum to Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Twin Towers, the new skylines of cities attract millions of tourists to their airports and hotels, boosting the tourism industry to unprecedented levels.
Even though the data dates back to 2006, the results of this worldwide city destinations tourism research is still worth noting, because huge shifts amongst the destinations in Europe, the VS and other main stream destinations are not expected.
The overview can therefore perfectly serve as a base for deciding the order of the production and publications of the Famous Flavours guides. The only thing is that I am missing Brussels in the top 20, which seems kind of odd, considering the fact that Brussels is the European capital. So I have taken the liberty to include Brussels in my own priority top 10.
Let’s have look at the list. I started with marking the European city destinations, because those will be most easy to start with on the shortest possible notion within my available time/money budget.
Top 150 City Destinations 2006
City
Ranking
tourist arrivals
London
1
15,640,000
Bangkok
2
10,350,000
Paris
3
9,700,000
Singapore
4
9,502,000
Hong Kong
5
8,139,000
New York City
6
6,219,000
Dubai
7
6,120,000
Rome
8
6,033,000
Seoul
9
4,920,000
Barcelona
10
4,695,000
Dublin
11
4,469,000
Bahrain
12
4,418,000
Shanghai
13
4,315,000
Toronto
14
4,160,000
Kuala Lumpur
15
4,125,000
Istanbul
16
3,994,000
Madrid
17
3,921,000
Amsterdam
18
3,901,000
Mecca
19
3,800,000
Prague
20
3,702,000
Moscow
21
3,695,000
Beijing
22
3,593,000
Vienna
23
3,339,000
Taipei
24
3,280,000
St.Petersburg
25
3,200,000
Cancun
26
3,074,000
Macau
27
3,072,000
Venice
28
2,927,000
Warsaw
29
2,925,000
Mexico
30
2,823,000
Los Angeles
31
2,513,000
Guangzhou
32
2,512,000
Benidorm
33
2,457
Berlin
34
2,309
Rio De Janeiro
35
2,185
Budapest
36
2,043
San Francisco
37
1,993
Orlando
38
1,993
Miami
39
1,972
Munich
40
1,925
Shenzen
41
1,904
Milan
42
1,902
Sydney
43
1,852
Oahu/Honolulu
44
1,733
Cairo
45
1,720
Florence
46
1,715
Lisbon
47
1,715
Las Vegas
48
1,647
Hangzhou
49
1,562
Marrakesh
50
1,500
Tokyo
51
1,467
Abu Dhabi
52
1,459
Varadero
53
1,448
Copenhagen
54
1,375
Zurich
55
1,369
Edinburgh (GB)
56
1,338
Cape Town
57
1,323
Zhuhai
58
1,318
Suzhou
59
1,286
Seville
60
1,234
Nice
61
1,227
São Paulo
62
1,095
Washington DC
63
1,062
Chicago
64
1,062
Guilin
65
1,021
Stockholm
66
1,003
Tallinn
67
1,001
Boston
68
997
Krakow
69
992
La Havana
70
953
Salvador de Bahia
71
935
Melbourne
72
923
Manchester (GB)
73
912
Salzburg (City)
74
874
Tianjin
75
850
Nanjing
76
843
Helsinki
77
842
Xi’an
78
801
Qingdao
79
795
Xiamen
80
792
Birmingham (GB)
81
779
Glasgow (GB)
82
741
Hamburg
83
739
Lyon
84
715
Montreal
85
679
Mumbai
86
672
Dalian
87
666
San Diego
88
650
Bruges
89
641
Antwerp
90
636
Liverpool (GB)
91
625
New Delhi
92
612
Valencia
93
611
Kunming
94
607
Granada
95
606
Wuxi
96
594
Chennai
97
588
Geneva
98
577
Agra
99
560
Chongquing
100
544
Innsbruck
101
536
Oslo
102
522
Chengdu
103
508
Fortaleza
104
503
Atlanta
105
477
Houston
106
455
Bratislava
107
455
Oxford (GB)
108
449
Foz do Iguacu
109
438
Gothenburg
110
422
San Jose
111
412
Luxembourg City
112
406
Bristol (GB)
113
403
Buenos Aires
114
395
Reykjavik
115
371
Nürnberg
116
356
Naples
117
356
Buzios
118
355
Cardiff (GB)
119
355
Cambridge (GB)
120
348
Seattle
121
325
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
122
317
Florianópolis
123
314
Monaco
124
313
Leeds
125
292
Brighton/Hove
126
265
Ghent
127
261
York
128
253
Inverness
129
252
Heidelberg
130
245
Bath
131
245
Dijon
132
242
Genova
133
239
Dresden
134
227
Reims
135
226
Nottingham
136
219
Graz
137
206
Reading
138
202
Goa
139
200
Linz
140
199
Bilbao
141
198
Aberdeen
142
195
Marseille
143
180
Chester
144
173
Jerusalem
145
165
Saragossa
146
159
Tarragona
147
154
Malmö
148
131
Bregenz
149
96
Turku
150
87
World Tourism Organisation, European Cities Tourism, National Statistics, National Tourist Boards, Local Tourism & Convention Bureaux, Trade Press (local and national newspapers, The Economist, Business Travel News), Euromonitor International.
Mainland China’s cities exclude visits from Hong Kong and Macao (and vice versa), but include visitors from Taiwan.
Here´s the thing. My own culinary curiousity is not bounded to the moments I am on holidays. Being a curious food lover is part of my always, everywhere identity. So I am always and everywhere looking for opportunities to satisfy my culinary curiousity – to learn about food -. And that should be the state of mind the CFL guides should support as well. In fact it actually already does, I just have not formulated the right message. Yet. I am right now in full speed action to update the ‘pay-off’ of the CLF guides, from culinary travel guide to Curious Food Lover’s resource guide, for people who love to learn about food. Any time and any place.
I know, I should be writing about food related items, to serve my curious food loving audience to the max. Sorry, today (as so many other days) I am again totally obsessed about a technical detail on my website. I want to integrate more pictures, since many of us are perfectly capable of eating with our eyes (see, it still comes down to food and eating, even when it looks at the surface like I am thinking about webdevelopment).
(see what I mean? Looking at food pictures is a joy in itself. These are fresh goat cheeses, presented at the Terra Madre convention in Turin, in 2008)
There are many website which have some form of slideshow. Problem (according to my very wise webdeveloper) is that the majority of the slideshows are presented in a format called “Flash” and that not all browsers can deal with that format. Then you get one of those annoying little blue squares. All Blackberry and iPhone users know what I mean.
So I have spend many interesting, though unproductive, hours with trying to reinvent the slideshow-wheel, in an effort to save spending 22 Euros on a ready-to-go solution.
This morning, while pondering all the possible improvements to the website, I decided to stop this madness and buy a (hopefully) easy solution.
So now it’s time to get to work and see how fast I can get the thing working. Keep an eye on the site!
Through the great weblog of my brother Joachim, I found this inspiring TED talk from Simon Sinek. He explains why it makes more sense to think WHY -HOW- WHAT when you are selling products than the other way around, while in daily life people tend to do exactly the opposite. So did I.
My “elevator speech” was; I publish a culinary travel guide because there are many culinary tourists who have to spend too much time on creating a satisfying itinary. So I made a clever and inspiring online travel guide. I thought. Still, something was nagging me, keeping me from shouting this proudly from the highest roofs.
Cause when I looked at what I made, I saw that I did way more than required for a practical travel guide and that I had spend lots of money and time on including more or less non-functional items. I mean, what’s the use of surprise stamps, pictures and facts in the larger context of a travel guide. Nothing? Why did I blog about pillows with macaron print or tiny wine & bread tableaus? Useless, you’d think, waste of time.
Still, this content HAD to be there, I felt. So today I took the time to sit down and try to put my sub-conscious thoughts about the “why” of CFL on paper. I found that I had conciously fully been focussing on the “CURIOUS food lover” part, ignoring my personal “curious FOOD LOVER” desires. As a food lover, I like be involved with food, using all my senses – looking at great pictures, tasting pleasant food, enjoying comforable textures and smells, listining to the sound of spatters when roasting meat, what not. Yet pleasing these senses had not much to do with satisfying curiousity, so on the surface they did not meet the websites purpose of collecting activities based upon interestingness, satisfying for the mind.
And when I look back at the results so far, I have not been making a travel guide for the curious food liker, I have made a travel guide for the curious food lover, where browsing through the content should be a pleasure both for your senses as for your mind, as well as the activities included should offer be able to satisfy both. An important addition to the existing supply of culinary guides, is the broadness of the activities included, obvious activities like restaurants being “just one of the many” possibilities to satisfy versatile culinary curiousity.
Enough thinking for now, just have a look at the Simon Sinek’s TED talk yourself!
