Will The Chef Serve This? Insights On Placing Ghanaian Dishes On The Hotel Menu

Abstract

Aside its gastronomic qualities, food is identified as a means through which tourism destinations can be promoted. Suggestions are made for local dishes to be served in tourism-oriented establishments to increase their acceptance as tourism products. Generally the discourse on food tourism has largely been from a demand perspective with relatively little emphasis
being placed on the supply-side dimensions, particularly the decision making processes that surround the placement of Ghanaian food on the hotel menu. This study uses the Theory of Planned Behaviour as the substratum to enquire into the attitudes and intentions of menu decision-makers in hotels towards adding more variety of Ghanaian dishes unto their menu.Adopting a qualitative research design, in-depth interviews were conducted with menu decision-makers from twelve purposively selected 1 to 3-star rated hotels in Accra, Takoradi and Kumasi. Interpretation of the results was based on the factors that are considered by menu-decision makers when deciding on menu items as suggested by the literature and described using the narrative technique, summaries and representative quotes. The findings indicate that while there is a general desire by chefs to increase their placement of Ghanaian dishes on the menu, factors such as customer acceptance, and managerial support play a constraining role in the slow adaption of local dishes unto the menu.