The Best Foodie Destinations For Millennial Travellers

According to the Hotels.com® Tasty Travels* report, two thirds of millennials in the UAE (74%) admitted a destination’s cuisine is the biggest deciding factor when picking where to holiday, with special offers (16%), beautiful beaches (51%) and the shopping scene (20%) being less appetising. The younger generation are now even more focused on munching delicious local delicacies on holiday (67%) than visiting landmarks (65%) and exploring the outdoors (20%).

Paris (27%), Tokyo (23%) and Rome (22%) have topped a list of the hottest spots on earth for foodies. Paying tribute to these delicious destinations, Hotels.com has collaborated with food artist Carl Warner to bring foodies’ favourite hangouts to life, using the city’s famous food ingredients – Parisian buildings made of cheese, the Pantheon made of pasta and Mount Fuji made of seaweed, every city looks good enough to eat.

It’s food over friends these days, as 73% admit they prefer to snap their food than their friends’ faces (30%) for Instagram #sorrynotsorry. The research found a gut-busting rise in food photography on social media, as on a week’s holiday, Millennial travellers snap on average 135 photos, of which almost a quarter are of food.

The Hotels.com survey also revealed that pizza & pasta (45%) are the food UAE Millennials are most likely to post on social media, followed by indulgent desserts like donuts and freak shakes (15%) and Americana burgers (32%). Young travellers don’t play it safe with their food choices either, as one in five claimed they’d love to try chicken feet (19%) and garlic ice cream (19%).

To celebrate the mouth-watering combination of food and travel, renowned food artist Carl Warner has created a unique collection of artworks bringing the top foodie destinations to life. Each city scene, captured in HD photography, is deliciously constructed with famous foods from each location. Parisian markets and the Eiffel Tower are built with decadent chocolate and blue cheese; the Pantheon and a cobbled back street in Rome are brought to life with pasta and Parmesan cheese; while a serene zen garden and tea ceremony are imagined with maki rolls, ginger and shiitake mushrooms overlooking Mount Fuji, in Warner’s tribute to Tokyo.

Food artist and photographer Carl Warner, said, “When Hotels.com approached me with the idea, I instantly knew this project was right up my bean cobbled, blue cheese street! It was a great opportunity for me to bring images and scenes of these hugely popular foodie destinations to life in an exciting and contemporary way. I hope that these images will not only blow people away, but inspire them to get online, get booking and not just ‘sight-see’ but ‘sight-taste’.”

The Tasty Travels research also revealed that it’s no longer about the five-star dining experience, UAE millennials now prefer street food (32%) to Michelin star restaurants (17%). Eating experiences are in fact now so high on the UAE Millennial travel tick-list, (94%) travellers said foodie experiences stand out the most in their holiday memories. This topped spending time with their travel buddy (18%), and even a cheeky adrenaline activity (6%) #TastyTravels.