Regional Vitalization through Food Festival Tourism - A Comparison between Jeonju Bibimbap Festival and Singapore Food Festival-

People have more interest in experiencing and consuming food in tourism than before. Local municipalities and governments also pay more attention to food tourism as means to strengthen local economic development. Food and beverage has been considered as means to gratify one s hunger in most cases in travel. But now, there is a growing tendency to enjoy regional food as means to taste and understand local culture for tourists. In order to attract more culinary and food tourists, many municipalities and local governments develop food festivals. October Fest of Munich is the best example. This study was intended to investigate the tourist aspects of food festivals in East Asia, It will compare and analyze how the themes and program of food festivals was organized to attract tourists, why certain elements of local culture and food are selected while others are ignored, how those elements influence to the attractiveness of those localities as tourist attraction, and how these tourists are affecting the regional revitalization and urban regeneration, The selected cases for this research are Jeonju Bibimbap Festival’ of Korea and ‘Singapore Food Festival’. Jeonju Bibimbap Festival and Singapore Food Festival are strategic choice to attract more tourists by responding to the latest urban changes in two cities, especially urban renewal, and to the latest trend of tourism. Jeonju has been the most famous city for ‘food’ in Korea, and ‘Bibimbap’ has been recognized as a representative food of Jeonju. An image of ‘the best city of Korean taste’ and festival under the theme of ‘Bibimbap’ were created as a part of the regional revitalization policy to attract Korean tourists over the nation. As a multi-racial nation, Singapore naturally developed a fusion food festival to attract divers peoples from the world to revitalize Hawker Center area. This research will analyze and compare two local food festivals as a means to renewal inner city areas. Festival Tourism.