Gastronomy as a Source of Destination Competitiveness: The Role of Creative-Innovativeness, Sustainability, and Local Features of Restaurants

Authors

Borut Milfelner
University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business
Nuša Basle Vertiz
University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8972-0228
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18690/um.epf.8.2026.5

Synopsis

This research explores how employee and restaurant creative-innovativeness, sustainability, and local features impact the perception of a tourist destination and its offer. The empirical analysis was conducted using a sample of visitors to upscale restaurants, and the research is grounded in the resource-based view (RBV) framework. The results indicate that employees' perceived creative-innovativeness significantly enhances the restaurant's perceived sustainability and local features. In contrast, the restaurant's creative-innovativeness primarily influences perceived sustainability. Interestingly, perceived innovative trends may diminish perceived local features, suggesting a potential conflict between global trends and local identity. These findings confirm the key thesis that a restaurant's sustainability significantly contributes to the destination’s reputation, the perception of its local elements, and the quality of tourism facilities. Additionally, the restaurant's local features further enhance the destination's reputation and local identity. The quality of tourism facilities, along with the destination's reputation and local characteristics, significantly affects the overall perception of the tourist offer. Consequently, we conclude that restaurants can play a crucial role in shaping the competitiveness of tourism destinations, with human capital, innovativeness, sustainability, and local features serving as essential sources of competitive advantage.

Author Biographies

Borut Milfelner, University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business

Borut Milfelner is a Full Professor of Marketing and an Assistant Professor of Tourism at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor. He received his PhD in 2008 from the School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana. His research interests include marketing research, internal marketing, tourism marketing and marketing theory. His bibliography comprises more than 450 publications, including original scientific articles, papers presented at scientific conferences, scientific monographs, and independent scientific contributions or chapters in edited volumes. He has participated in several fundamental and targeted research projects funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, the Slovenian Research Agency, the Ministry of the Economy and the Slovenian Tourist Board, as well as in European Union projects. He is a member of the editorial boards of three international scientific journals in the field of business studies and serves as a reviewer for several Slovenian and international academic journals. 

Maribor, Slovenia. E-mail: borut.milfelner@um.si

Nuša Basle Vertiz, University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business

Nuša Basle Vertiz holds a PhD from the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, where she completed her doctoral studies at the Department of International Economics and Business. From 2019 to 2023, she worked as a teaching assistant in the fields of international economics and tourism at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor. She is currently employed as the director of an international family-owned company. Her academic and research interests focus on cultural, creative and gastronomic tourism. In addition to her academic career, she is a certified dance instructor and runs her own dance school. She is also the owner of a travel agency specialising in boutique and authentic travel experiences in Latin America and the Balkans. She is currently developing a unique Business Etiquette Academy, covering topics related to business protocol in cooperation with various distinguished professors. 

Maribor, Slovenia. E-mail: nusa.basle@icloud.com

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Volume

Med ponudbo in povpraševanjem: konkurenčnost kreativno-trajnostnih turističnih destinacij

Pages

249-298

Published

August 11, 2026

Categories

Copyright (c) 2026 University of Maribor, University of Maribor Press

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Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Milfelner, B., & Basle Vertiz, N. (2026). Gastronomy as a Source of Destination Competitiveness: The Role of Creative-Innovativeness, Sustainability, and Local Features of Restaurants. In B. M. Borut Milfelner (Ed.), Med ponudbo in povpraševanjem: konkurenčnost kreativno-trajnostnih turističnih destinacij (pp. 249-298). University of Maribor Press. https://doi.org/10.18690/um.epf.8.2026.5