Food Documentaries as a Tool for Cultural Promotion of Lahore: A Tourist Perspective

Abstract

This research eexamine the role of food in promoting cultural heritage, with a particular focus on how street food and food documentaries contribute to the cultural promotion of Lahore, Pakistan. The research explores how street food serves as a medium for image-building at both national and international levels, emphasizing the ways in which visual storytelling particularly through documentaries enhances cultural visibility and tourist engagement. A qualitative research design was employed, with thematic analysis conducted on in-depth interviews from three foreign and three local tourists from Pakistan. The Fits-Like-A-Glove choice theory and the Uses and gratification theory served as the conceptual foundation for the research. Interview protocol was designed as tool for data collection for desired study. The findings of the study revealed that cuisine is closely related to cultural heritage, gastronomy plays a significant role in promoting a city's or country's culture. Furthermore, the use of food documentaries significantly amplifies the cultural messaging by visually capturing the vibrancy, diversity, and authenticity of Lahore’s street food scene. Every place develops its own culture. Tourists look to taste the essence of a culture through its cuisine due to regional variations in climate and other variables. Street food also has significant economic importance since it promotes the preservation of the region's culinary and cultural legacy, which boosts tourism revenues and strengthened links with the territory. The cuisine of Lahore is a fusion of Punjabi cuisine, Mughal cuisine, and street-style culinary traditions emerges as both a sensory and symbolic experience for tourists. Documentaries serve as cultural artifacts that reinforce these connections, making food a unifying force and an effective tool for cultural promotion.