With the rapid development of gastronomy science and gastronomy tourism, the cultural exchange between nations has also accelerated. The acceleration of cultural exchange in this way has caused countries to need to brand their own cuisine culture. In the branding process, countries have started to use food and beverages, which are valuable in their culinary culture, as an image of their own country and use it as a local product. In this way, it has the chance to make its own kitchen marketing by influencing other nations and to establish a bridge with other kitchens. This led to the emergence of the concept of gastrodiplomacy over time.
Paul Rockower, who used the concept of gastrodiplomacy for the first time, defined it as “the method of reaching hearts and minds through people’s stomachs” (Türker, 2018). The concept of gastrodiplomacy, which is based on a cultural exchange with food, enables societies to create culinary diplomacy with public diplomacy.
“Economy” and “politics”, which have a strong bond between them, are two of the factors that play an important role in the power of a state. These factors also play a determining role in international relations (Aydemir and Bal, 2018: 73). So much so that states must inform, positively influence and mobilize foreign masses. In this context, conditions and interests may oblige public diplomacy, beyond the known classical diplomacy. Public diplomacy is described as “the ability to appeal to the hearts” or “soft power”. Tourism is also used as a soft power tool to increase political and economic power globally.
Diplomacy has many sub-branches. One of them is tourism diplomacy, where cultural interaction is experienced, which is related to cultural diplomacy. This concept is considered as a communication style that plays an important role in enabling states to reach the masses in foreign countries and facilitate communication between them. Tourism diplomacy includes two distinct aspects: “diplomatic tourism” and “touristic diplomacy”. Diplomatic tourism is defined as benefiting from tourism activities in order to gain maximum political and economic benefits at the international level. Touristic diplomacy is expressed as using diplomatic activities at the point of developing tourism.
