Chefs & Resorts Redefine Travel in Latest F&B Trends
Travel has moved away from the scope of an attraction now-it extends to the taste. The Latest Food & Beverage News can be seen sweeping across the travel and resorts sectors, with cuisine emerging as one of the strongest trend-setting elements to redefine the experience of a vacation. Instead of being based on an exciting scene or a stunning view from a resort, today's travelers book their trip for story-telling food-from immersive dining journeys to sustainable culinary practices.
Culinary Tourism Is on the Rise
The center stage has been occupied officially by gastronomy. According to the 2024 report by Statista, over 53% of travelers worldwide claim that the cuisine of a place plays a role in their choice to travel there. Resorts have listened. From Bali to the Amalfi Coast, luxury and boutique resorts are developing bespoke gastronomic experiences, crafted by celebrity chefs.
Consider Soneva Fushi in the Maldives, for example. The Once Upon a Table option at this resort presents guests with a very special fine dining experience involving a turn-on of various Michelin-starred chefs flown from around the world. What's that waitlist run? Only a few months.
Why This Shift Matters
Most buffet-style or continental menus were offered in the past. They were quite safe, but not exciting. Now meal companions become the center of the stay.
Chart: Key Trends in Resort Dining (2021–2025)
That says a great deal about the huge pivot-from mass-produced to meaningful meals. These days, travelers want authenticity in their travel experience, which comes with chefs respecting local ingredients and traditions.
Chefs: The Newest Travel Influencers
If there's anything that Instagram and TikTok have taught, it is that visually appealing content drives wanderlust. And who better to deliver drool worthy content than cheffies?
Consider Peru's Chef Virgilio Martínez: his restaurant Central was ranked #1 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2023. His work has turned Lima into a world gastronomic capital through his research in Amazonian culinary exploration. Tourists now fly for continents-not just for Machu Picchu-but to taste his harvest from the jungle.
Chef Garima Arora of Gaa in Bangkok is thus blurring the lines between culinary and cultural tourism with cooking classes, foraging trips to villages, and storytelling dinners mixed into their culinary retreats.
Sustainability and Local Sourcing: More Than a Buzzword
It's a movement deeper than viral videos or fancy plating-eco-gastronomy. Resorts are now acting as environmental stakeholders with chefs leading the way. Instead of caviar flown from exotic farms, menus are changing to seaweed-based recipes with locally caught fish and regenerative growing techniques.
Top Resorts Supporting Green Dining
Six Senses Zighy Bay, Oman - Their Earth Lab is focusing on zero waste kitchens and solar cooking.
The Brando, French Polynesia - Permaculture farm, supplies 70% of ingredients.
Aro Ha Wellness Retreat, New Zealand - Entirely plant-only dining, seasonal for reducing carbon footprints.
Travelers today are not just food-tasters; they are conscious consumers. They ask: Where did it come from? Was it sourced through ethical means? Such resorts and chefs that can make these questions have had honest trust and loyalty.
Holidays in Culinary Workshops, not just Meals
Another growing trend? Hands-on food activities. Rather than sitting passively enjoying the meal, travelers literally get their hands dirty. So many luxury resorts offer their guests today:
Native ingredient workshops
Sea-to-table fishing excursions
Cooking masterclasses with Chef
Food fermentation labs.
For example: Guests at Anantara Golden Triangle in Thailand cook alongside local grandmothers with bamboo shoots and banana flowers collected that very morning. It is more than a meal-it is a memory.
Tech Meets Taste: Digital Menus and AI Pairings
Technology is reinventing our dining in resorts. From QR-coded menus to smart wine pairing via AI that also has augmented reality plating previews, the dining experience has gone digital. Guests can point their dishes with AR glasses at Waldorf Astoria Dubai to learn about their dishes' origins, nutrition, and preparation methods. AI has also brought sommeliers closer, with data-driven tools presenting wine-pairing alternatives tailored specifically to their taste profiles.
Final Bite: The Future of Travel is Flavor-First
What is the travel industry's implication of all this? That food is not only part of the journey but also the journey itself. Today's travelers are no longer satisfied with just sitting back and looking at monuments: they want full immersion, and that is precisely what the chefs and resorts are offering through meals that teach, connect, and transform.
So much so that others major travel platforms have also scratched at this new shift. One of which is Airbnb, which has recently rolled out a new feature called "Experiences by Chefs," while Google Travel has integrated restaurant discovery into destination planning. Blurring the lines between culinary art and tourism is one thing. A plate has become a new passport. Travel Anew will have endless opportunities for tracking tourism News,from chef-driven branding of destinations to partner resorts with local food communities. The future of tourism may just be plated, as travelers most significantly tend to their taste buds.