TITLE:
Urban Culture and City Brand: A Study on Food Experience
AUTHORS:
Mu Zhang, Luyao Wang, Jiayun Zhou, Rob Law
KEYWORDS:
Urban Culture, City Brand, Sustainable Development, Food Experience, Guangzhou
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Service Science and Management,
Vol.15 No.2,
April
29,
2022
ABSTRACT: Urban culture is the
foundation and lifeblood of a city’s sustainable development. A city’s brand is
often rooted in its culture, showcasing and then reviving the urban culture.
Characteristic and traditional food, as an element that can quickly bring urban
culture and its stakeholders closer, may be able to reconcile conflicts in the
development of urban culture and city brands. Taking Guangzhou, Guangdong
Province, China as a case site, this study for the first time takes food experience as an intermediary variable to
construct a structural equation model to empirically examine the influence
mechanism of urban cultural cognition on city brand. Research results show that
food experience plays a partial intermediary role in urban cultural cognition
and city brand identity. This study supplements the research on urban cultural
perception and city brand perception and provides suggestions for the revival
of urban historical culture and sustainable urban branding practices through
characteristic and traditional food.