Introducing olive-oil tourism as a special interest tourism

Juan Ignacio Pulido-Fernández; Jairo Casado-Montilla; Isabel Carrillo-Hidalgo

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02975

Introducing olive-oil tourism as a special interest tourism

Heliyon. 2019 Dec 4;5(12):e02975. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02975. eCollection 2019 Dec.

Authors

Juan Ignacio Pulido-Fernández¹, Jairo Casado-Montilla², Isabel Carrillo-Hidalgo³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Economics, Laboratory of Analysis and Innovation in Tourism (LAInnTUR), University of Jaén, Spain.
² Laboratory of Analysis and Innovation in Tourism (LAInnTUR), University of Jaén, Spain.
³ Department of Financial Economics and Accounting, Laboratory of Analysis and Innovation in Tourism (LAInnTUR), University of Jaén, Spain.

Abstract

Olive-oil tourism is an emerging tourism typology that is especially developing in the Mediterranean basin, though successful cases also exist in other regions of the world. The main motivation underlying olive-oil tourism demand is the desire to learn about and enjoy the world of olives and olive oil. The objective of this article is to characterise this new tourism typology and identify its main activities. Based on a thorough bibliographical review and an expert panel, we show that this tourism typology corresponds to special interest tourism, and derives from three types of general interest tourism (rural, nature and cultural) with connections to other specific types of tourism. Furthermore, we demonstrate its links to an increasingly broad range of activities and services, thus revealing how complex this type of tourism can be, a feature proper to so-called special interest tourism.

Keywords: General interest tourism; Olive-oil tourism; Research and development; Special interest tourism; Tourism; Tourism industry; Tourism management.