A Consumption Value Perspective on Malacca’s Street Food Tourism

Abstract

Street foods have become a crucial experiential dimension for tourism destinations, especially in heritage towns such as Malacca in Malaysia. Although the majority of earlier studies have concentrated on safety, hygiene, and behaviors associated with street foods, there has been negligible conceptual research that explores the effects that a combination of various values has on the attitudes shown by domestic tourists towards street food tourism. Under the premise of Consumption Value Theory, this conceptual piece proposes a holistic approach that explains domestic tourists’ attitudes towards street foods in Malacca using five major dimensions: taste value, health value, price value, emotional value, and social value. Based on some recent experiences within the context of tourism and the consumption of foods, the piece is set to make new contributions to the area of street foods and tourism through the integration of the above-mentioned three types of value into one holistic attitudinal approach.