• Dr. A. Apsara Saleth Mary

Abstract - In the rapidly changing global economic scenario, tourism is considered to be one of the largest and fast growing industries. Tourism has been a key force in promoting events; their growth and expansion. Destinations are increasingly keen to share their attractions, culture and environment with visitors by promoting a variety of planned events. Food festivals serve as important attractors for destinations, because they can provide unique experience for attendees. Rural communities are using food festivals to promote local delicacies, especially when the names of a particular place or region have been put together with the products. It has become widely accepted that every community and destination needs to adopt a long-term, strategic approach to event tourism. This has given rise to the opportunity of planning, organizing and managing development specifically tourism development in order to realize the full tourism potential of events as well as the destinations. India is one of the major destinations of the foreign tourists for the reason of unique culture and hospitability, in particularly the state of Tamil Nadu has a rich cultural heritage among the Indian states. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of events tourism through food festivals and how destinations can use food tourism as a tourism product. The paper also suggests important measures to promote event tourism through food festivals in the state of Tamil Nadu and to tap its potential properly.

Key Words - Food tourism; food festivals and events; travel motivations

"FOOD FESTIVALS IN TAMILNADU THROUGH EVENT TOURISM: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no.35-41, May-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905L06.pdf

"FOOD FESTIVALS IN TAMILNADU THROUGH EVENT TOURISM: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no. pp35-41, May-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905L06.pdf