The Role of Local Food Experience in Shaping Gastronomic Satisfaction and Destination Satisfaction: Domestic Tourist in Eastern Indonesia

Indonesia is a country with diverse and unique cultural heritage that influenced its food tradition. Eastern Indonesias distinctive culture is also reflected in their plenty of local foods. Furthermore, local food is one of the key factors to shape tourist satisfaction towards the destination. The objective of this study was to examine the role of experience through local food toward both gastronomic and destination satisfaction. The five-point Likert questionnaire was collected from 360 domestic tourists visiting six major cities in Eastern Indonesia (Lombok, Kupang, Manado, Makassar, Banjarmasin and Balikpapan). Partial Least-Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to investigate the relationship amongst the variables. The result indicated that local food attributes positively influenced both gastronomic and destination satisfaction. On the other hand, emotional benefit only has a significant relationship to gastronomic satisfaction while epistemic benefit has a significant relationship with destination satisfaction. The findings also imply that gastronomic satisfaction has partially mediated the relationship between local food experience and epistemic benefit toward destination satisfaction, and also fully mediated the relationship between emotional benefit and destination satisfaction.