Özet:

Afyonkarahisar is one of the important gastronomic destinations of Turkey with its cooking culture, historic and traditional food industry. Thus, in the framework of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in 2019, Gastronomy City title was awarded, after Gaziantep and Hatay, the third of Turkey. Gastronomy is a city. The UNESCO Gastronomy City title is attributed to the views, criticisms, advice and activities of local restaurant operators, which are key stakeholders in the field of gastronomy. For this reason, the work is aimed at identifying and evaluating local restaurant operators' views on the title of "UNESCO Gastronomy City" of Afyonkarahisar and the elements that develop within the framework of this title. For this purpose, 10 local restaurant operators have been interviewed. During the interviews, a semi-configured interview form was managed to the participants with 7 open-end questions and the data obtained was analyzed with the illustrative analysis method from the quality research methods. According to the findings obtained, local restaurant operators have a high awareness of the title "Gastronomy City" and have detailed information about the Afyonkarahisar cuisine culture. In addition, the title obtained according to the participants’ statements has positively influenced the value of tourists coming to the city in terms of both quality and quantity.

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