Gaziantep is located at the western tip of the southeastern region of Anatolia and at the northwestern tip of Mesopotamia. Through its 6000-year-old historical background, the city has a lot to offer with a rich and very diverse food heritage.
Gaziantep gastronomy is already a brand in Turkey, and the city is now working hard to become an international brand.
A few examples: the inclusion into the UNESCO Creative City Network in the field of Gastronomy, the nomination by the European Commission as “European Destination of Excellence in regard to gastronomy”…and of course their active work as Délice Network member.
With such an investment in developing and growing its tourism through gastronomy, Gaziantep is the second pilot city, after Malmö, to invite some of our Délice members for our new event format, the Study Tours.
The idea of a Study Tour is to invite a limited number of people for a few days visit to experience a member city through on-site visits, focusing on one aspect of their food strategy.
As for the first Study Tour in Malmö, the guests were selected through a call of interest. Cities coming from all over the world responded to the call: Cali, Helsinki, Puebla, Stavanger, and Tucson.
This delegation of 5 cities traveled to Gaziantep from September 13th to 16th 2022 to discover the famous “GastroAntep” festival (more info below) and had the chance to discuss over the topic “Gastronomy and branding”, more specifically on the contribution of Gastronomy Tourism to branding and the economic dimensions of branding.
The Délice delegation enjoyed a program full of activities, discussions, and visits.
Please click here to see the full program
Please click here for a briefing on the Study Tour topic written by local organizers
The Visit of the GastroAntep Festival:
The Festival covered 54.300m2 with 24.300m2 of green areas. It welcomed more than 250.000 visitors: national and international chefs, foodies and food writers, citizens of Gaziantep and international delegations that gathered to celebrate Gaziantep’s gastronomy, to discover culinary traditions from all over the world, and to exchange on policies and approaches to gastronomy.
Many experts and speakers met for a series of discussions on the topic “Branding”: How does a city work on its image to be perceived as a “gastronomy city” at a national and international level?
Speakers:
● Ayşe Ertürk, Director of Tourism, GMM
● Sevda Çapa, Director of Environmental Protection and Control, Alanya Municipality
● Dr. Ceyhun Uçuk, Academician, Gaziantep University Department of Gastronomy
● Niclas Fjellström - Culinary Heritage Network Global Coordinator/Sweden
and many more gathered around the table. These discussions represented an excellent opportunity to collect and share best practices and take inspiration in order to bring home some good ideas!
Gaziantep Study Tour: another good example of the Délice Network DNA “Learn, Share & Connect”!
