"New wave of foodies want their caviar, too" by Jane E. Fraser

Full article: New wave of foodies want their caviar, too in Sydney Morning Herald.

Source: Whybin TBWA

In this article, travel writer, Jane E. Fraser wrote that there is a growing trend among Australian foodies to look for gourmet experiences in unexpected destinations. Replacing traditional food travel destinations such as France and Italy are Thailand, Japan, Iceland, Spain, Greece and basically everywhere else.

She said there is a shift in what these foodies are looking for. Instead of merely looking for good food, thanks to the MasterChef effect, they now look more for the culinary experience - fishing in traditional Vietnamese way, wine-tasting in Thailand, or tyring out “the world’s only ecologically certified caviar” in Spain.

I think this is an exciting new angle to food travelling. The logic of such trend makes sense, but Fraser did not provide enough support and evidence to prove such a trend exists.

She quoted only two sources in this article: the owner of Food and Wine Travel, Karen Ridge and the managing director of Biznaga Travel Company, Casey Death. The majority of information was provided by Ridge while Death was only cited in two paragraphs about their company’s two-week travel package to Spain.

I seriously doubt the credibility of the sources. They are owner and manager of travel businesses, and it’s reasonable for me to assume certain level of bias in their stances.

The lack of figures and statistics to back up the trend is a serious flaw in this article. Is there any figure from the Australian government? Why not interview this new trend of travellers and hear what they say?

It seems that we can only take Fraser’s words for it. I didn’t know her so I checked her website, which said she’s one of Australia’s renowned and award-winning travel writers. However, readers always doubt what travel writers say in general, don’t we? We are sceptical because we think they are usually endorsed by the travel industry.

This article gives this feeling. The last paragraph about a STA’s travel deal smells “endorsement” – it is awkwardly placed; it isn’t directly related to the article; it sounds absolutely commercial.

Lastly, something minor. At the beginning of the article, Fraser used “that” cooking show to allude to MasterChef. But why not name it to avoid any ambiguity? Also, there is a grammatical mistake in the title – it should have been “new wave of foodies ‘wants’ their caviar, too”.