Market Segmentation Examples: Food-Focused Travelers

Capturing More Traveler Dollars & Demand with Food Tasting & Cooking Experiences

In prior Insight to Action research, we learned that adding a recipe and a picture of an appealing dish drove reader and viewer engagement for topics as diverse as financial planning and life insurance.   Food is a top topic of interest for both moms and dads, a key segment for many industries. In these modern market segmentation examples, we see how food motivates four significant traveler segments. 

Food is a major part of most travel experiences (everyone has to eat!). For some, it is the whole point.  As Travel & Leisure states,

“Food is one of the great reasons to travel. Entire trips can be planned around Kyoto’s many ramen shops or the hawker centers of Singapore. Travelers can spend vacations seeking out the fufu of Accra or the mint tea of Marrakesh, the mole of Mexico City or the ceviche of Lima. And of course, is any trip to New York City complete without a bagel breakfast, or a trip to Paris finished before sampling at least a dozen or so croissants? For travelers looking to make food the central experience of their trip, Travel + Leisure is here to help them navigate the world of culinary vacations.”

For those who plan their entire trip around food, Travel & Leisure provides numerous “Trip Ideas,” including:

• “Louisiana’s Cajun Country is So Much More Than Gumbo and Gators…”
• “Take a Tour of Mexico City’s Thriving Street Food Scene: in ‘Walk With T&L’”
• “Enjoy a Taste of Appalachia On a Culinary Road Trip”

Whether it is the entire focus of the trip or a side excursion, I’ve noticed a trend by organizations to capture more discretionary dollars by capitalizing on these well-documented interests among consumers to combine travel and food. 

Examples include cooking classes offered by resorts and hotel operators, classes at local cooking schools, classes at cooking-focused retailers like Sur La Table, scads of tasting experiences, and culinary and cooking-focused trips.   

Market Segmentation Examples:
Food-Focused Traveler Segmentation

There are as many as four different market segment examples of consumers who are interested in combining food and travel. Understanding these four segments and meeting their needs will unlock additional discretionary spending.

First, there is a “Food First Traveler” who plans his or her trip around food.   This market segment opts not to cook while traveling but does choose their trip with food as a primary driver.   Food First Travelers will vie for reservations in the top restaurants where they are traveling and carefully plan their itinerary with meals in mind.

Cooking tours appeal to a second market segment of consumers who are “Aspiring Travel Cooks.”  Aspiring Travel Cooks enjoy cooking, will do some cooking on vacation, and enjoy trying to make new dishes but lack formal culinary training.

There are also consumers who do not want to make cooking and food a primary focus of their vacation.   Some of them fall into a third market segment of “Casual Connoisseurs,” who are interested in unique or elevated experiences.   The difference between this group and the first Food-Focused Traveler is that food is of interest, but not the main point of their travel.

A fourth segment of consumers are simply interested in tasting, namely “Casual Tasting Enthusiasts,” who are open to taste the local offerings, whether gourmet or not.  Some of these consumers may also lack experience and confidence to try to make new dishes themselves but are excited to try them while traveling.

These four segments of consumers are the most attractive targets for organizations who are looking to capture more discretionary travel dollars.  While there are other segments in the market, such as those who prepare all meals themselves while traveling, and those who do not travel regularly, these other segments are much less likely to spend additional dollars on food experiences while traveling and are not the focus of these market segmentation examples. 

Market Segmentation Examples for Casual Tasting Enthusiasts: Food Tasting Tours

Judging by the sheer number of tasting tours offered, one of the largest market segmentation examples by size is Casual Tasting Enthusiasts. In Los Angeles, for instance, there are a number of companies competing to offer tasting tours.

These tours will also draw business both from Food-First Travelers and Casual Connoisseurs, depending on the price point and exclusivity.

Searching for “food tasting tour” in “Los Angeles” on Yelp yields the following options with over 100 reviews:  

• Six Taste – 4.9 Yelp rating with 963 reviews.  Their prices “start at $85 per person, which includes all food tastings and guided walking tour.”  Six Taste also has 182 votes and a 5.0 rating on Google.  Six Taste was also recognized by USA Today as a Top 10 Food Tour.
• Sidewalk Food Tours of Los Angeles – 4.9 Yelp rating with 185 reviews.  While child (ages 4-17) prices are listed at $75 so they can claim, “from $75,” the adult prices start at $89.  Sidewalk Food Tours of Los Angeles also has 132 votes and a 4.9 rating on Google.
• Melting Pot Food Tours – 4.8 Yelp rating with 194 reviews. Similar to others, prices start at $89 for adults and go up from there, depending on the tour.  Melting Pot Food Tours has a 4.8 rating on Google, with just 36 votes.

Putting the same “food tasting tour Los Angeles” search into Google, while ignoring sponsored results yields one addition choice with over 100 votes:

• Secret Food Tours – 5.0 Google rating with 130 votes.  Again, adult prices start at $89 depending on the tour.  Secret Food Tours has just 3 reviews on Yelp.

From these four leading operators, it is clear $85+ for an adult is the current market pricing for a 90-minute to three-hour food tasting tour in Los Angeles. These tours appeal to the Casual Tasting Enthusiast market segment who wants to spend a few hours trying local foods and learning a little about the local area.   

Many of these tours require walking, so participants need to be physically able to enjoy the experience. Demographically, they will appeal to physically fit and moderately fit consumers ages 18-59 who are able to afford the $85 per-person starting price point.  Of course, prices will vary by market.

Using Google Trends as a gauge, worldwide interest in food tasting tours is on the rise in recent years. Using the search term “food tasting tour,” we found that average weekly searches grew on average 17% from 2022 to 2023, and another 9% from 2023 through end of August 2024.  In fact, average weekly searches in 2023 were at the same level as late 2019 and early 2020 (January and February prior to COVID).  Total searches grew 19% from 2022 to 2023 but are now slightly down comparing year-to-date 2024 to year-to-date 2023.

Looking at wine tasting tours, by comparison, using the search term “wine tasting tour” in Google Trends, there is eight times more interest in wine than in food tasting tours.  Wine tasting tour interest as measured in weekly averages grew 2% from 2022 to 2023, and then exploded in 2024, growing 21% year-to-date (see chart).  The total number of searches for wine tasting tours also grew 4% from 2023 to 2024 and has grown 11% year-to-date in 2024.    We excluded 2020 through 2021 from this chart as there was a drop in searches related to COVID.

Travel Advisor lists wine tasting tours in Los Angeles, with prices starting at $115 per person, and up, depending on whether there is a private limo included and the beverage selection.   Taking this information together, the wine tasting market can be estimated at 10 times as large as the food tasting market (combining the higher level of interest and higher price point).

Market Segmentation Examples for Casual Tasting Enthusiasts: Chocolate Tasting Tour

Chocolate tasting tours are another market segment example that appeal to many Casual Tasting Enthusiasts.  Using the Google Trends measure, chocolate tasting tours in the US average about one-third the weekly average of food tasting tours.

One example of a highly-popular chocolate tasting tour we tried recently is the Lydgate Farms tour in Kauai.  Adult pricing for ages 13+ is $135; children’s pricing is $95.  There were approximately 15 people on the tour when we did this, and with three to four tours a day, five days a week, 48 weeks a year, that is $1.5 to $2 million in annual revenues from these tours. For perspective, Lydgate reported revenues of $751,000 in 2019 prior to COVID, with a drop of 26% in 2020.

The tour starts with a talk about the goals of Lydgate Farms.  As the Lydgate farm website explains, they don’t actually manufacture chocolate. Rather, they are a cacao grower:

“Lydgate Farms is run by our fifth generation Kaua’i family. We grow high-quality cacao to make the finest craft chocolate. We also grow award-winning vanilla and honey….  In addition to our specialty crops, you’ll find a wide variety of botanicals around our farm that influence the taste of our honey and chocolate. Visit us in Wailua for an interactive farm tour and chocolate tasting.”

Our adult children saw the pictures from the Lydgate Farms tasting tour and are highly interested in having this experience.  Other pictures we shared with them did not generate the same “must do” enthusiasm. 

Trip Advisor rates Lydgate Farms as the #2 thing to do in Kauai (sorted by traveler favorites), second only to Waimea Canyon at five stars, ahead of Poipu Beach Park and many other natural attractions.  As further evidence of chocolate tasting popularity, #4 ranked Princeville Gardens also offers a chocolate tasting and botanical gardens tour for $95.  After that, the top attractions are primarily beaches.

Searching for “chocolate tasting tour” in Kauai on Yelp, three organizations offer chocolate tasting tours:

• Lydgate Farms – 4.6 Yelp rating with 279 reviews, priced at $135 per adult. Google ratings are 4.8 with 699 votes
• Princeville Botanical Gardens – 4.6 Yelp rating with 108 reviews, priced at $95. Google rating of 4.8 and 384 votes
• Garden Island Chocolate Tour & Tasting – 4.5 Yelp rating with 259 reviews, priced at $99. Google rating of 4.6 with 310 reviews

Two additional organizations come up on a “chocolate tasting tour” Yelp query, likely because they offer other food and cooking experiences in Kauia, but they do not offer chocolate specifics that we could find.

• Cooking Kauai – 4.7 Yelp rating with 104 reviews.  Classes such as “Farmers Market Cooking Class” and “Japanese Cooking Class” are priced at $130.  Cooking Kauia has a 4.8 Google rating with 95 reviews
• Tasting Kauai – 4.7 Yelp rating with 128 reviews. Tours of different areas, such as the Waimea Walking Food Tour, are offered at a price of $114 for ages 12+.  Tasting Kauia is rated 4.7 on Google with just 26 reviews. The tasting experiences Tasting Kauai is offering appear comparable to some of the Los Angeles food tasting tours 

Focusing just on chocolate tasting tours, this may represent several million in revenues from Kauai’s 1.4 million 2023 visitors.   This is a small slice of Kauai’s visitor spending in 2023 of $2.76 billion.  As of March 2024, Kauia visitor arrivals and spending were down 5% and 4% respectively compared with 2023. 

Moving outside the example of Kauai, there are many chocolate tasting tours offered in cities across the United States, as well as Switzerland, Belgium and other locations worldwide.  

Market Segmentation Examples for Aspiring Travel Cooks & Food-First Travelers: Culinary Vacations

For those who want to do some cooking while traveling, there are dedicated cooking vacations and culinary tours, such as those offered by Epitourean.  

For example last year, my husband and I relished the Culinary and Cultural Tour of Lisbon and Porto Portugal, currently priced at $4,398.  I now have an image of Porto’s Ribeira area hanging in my office as a reminder of this trip.  And in our kitchen, we have a stainless steel cataplana pan for making the seafood meal that we learned about at the Lisbon Cooking Academy. 

We also enjoyed a shorter, long weekend getaway foodie trip with Epitourean, the Colorado High Country Culinary Getaway, currently priced at $2,298, which was more of a tasting and cultural experience, not a cooking class.   

Prior to COVID, a AAA survey estimated the size of the culinary travel market segment at 22 million Americans.

In looking over lists of top providers of culinary tours, it was interesting to note many familiar names that we have traveled with for other purposes, such as EF Go Ahead (for destination travel) and Backroads (for bicycling and active vacations).  These are examples of a general-purpose travel company offering specialized culinary tours to capitalize on the demand. 

Given the high price point of a culinary tour, this is likely to be a more involved decision process for Aspiring Travel Cooks and is clearly unaffordable for less affluent consumers.  Some of these tours may be less about cooking and more about enjoying a culinary experience and will appeal to Food-First Travelers.

Among these market segmentation examples, a company that is well known for overall travel, such as Trafalgar, Butterfield and Robinson or Avalon will be a safer choice if the travel party includes a non-cook, as they will have activities in mind for the partner, family member or friend who is less interested in cooking.  For more active travelers, Backroads will be a good choice. 

Market Segmentation Examples:
Cooking Add-Ons at Hotels, Resorts, Stores & Held in “Chefs’ Homes”

Lately, I have noticed the cooking classes and culinary experiences are very popular add-ons. For instance, one of my colleagues and friends typically books a cooking class when visiting Miraval.  When I join her on a girlfriend trip, I will opt for a cooking class, typically paying extra for this, instead of choosing a different wellness activity like mindful eating, a hike, riding the zipline or enjoying a spa treatment.  

Another example of an add-on experience comes from the cooking classes offered by the chef at the Marriott Waiohai Vacation Club in Kauai.  Unlike Miraval, the Marriott chef does not have a pristine demonstration and instead works outdoors to share how to make dishes like macadamia-encrusted fish.  My husband and I enjoyed this class, and gladly paid the small additional fee to attend.

There are also several websites that specialize in cooking classes that a traveler can take, or a local for that matter.  These include:

1. Cozymeal.  This provider touts itself as a 5-Star Yelp company and offers cooking classes, food tours, private chefs, team building experiences and more.   For instance, in Los Angeles, there are 809 choices for classes at the “Chef’s Place” and 309 at “Your Place,” with most priced between $75-$100 per person.  My husband and I tried one of the Los Angeles cooking class options earlier in the year. There were four people in the class, which was held at the chef’s home.  Overall, we were underwhelmed but clearly there are many satisfied customers.

2.  Eatwith.  Eatwith touts “savor local flavours, forge global connections, discover a world of food.”  They offer cooking classes, food tours, dinners and more.  Some of the classes that they claim are most searched for are “pasta-making classes in Rome” and “cooking classes in Paris.”   The website currently offers some 636 cooking classes in Rome, priced from 78 Euro for 4.9 stars, 85 Euro for 4.8 stars and 65 Euro for 4.7 stars.  It’s evident that the pricing does not correspond to the stars.  At current exchange rates, for example, the Art of Fettuccine cooking class prices for 85 Euro equates to about $95.  Using this one data point of Rome, Eatwith appears more focused on Dinner (1,188 choices) than Cooking Classes (636).  Still, Cooking Classes are more popular for this provider than Food Tour (449), Lunch (245) or  Tasting (135).

3. Sur La Table.  This well-known retailer offers both in-store and online cooking classes.  Sur La Table offers different genres of classes, including Night In (online), Flour & Festivity (baking), Partner Classes (culinary luminaries), In-Store Popular Now (crowd pleasers) and Date Night. For us, the closest location is South Coast Plaza.  Choices include chef’s favorites, sushi, and more and pricing ranges from $89-$99 per person.

There are also many local cooking class providers, as well as additional platforms, such as CocuSocial “Best fun & social cooking and tasting classes at unique venues near you” and Traveling Spoon. CocuSocial prices ranged from $50 to $59 in Los Angeles, marked down from $84.  The one Traveling Spoon class I found in Los Angeles was $174.  After my limited experience, I will focus on cooking classes that have been vetted by a trusted source, such as Edible Destinations, as the quality can be very variable.

At Insight to Action, we often share analysis of travel trends. See “Positioning Strategy for 6 Leading Travel Brands” or “Positioning Strategy Marketing: Summer Family Vacations.” For other market segmentation examples visit our resources’ page.  Or join us at an upcoming office hours.