About the Lab

The International Gastronomy Tourism Lab was created to explore gastronomy tourism through a more experiential, collaborative, and destination-based educational approach.

As gastronomy tourism continues to evolve globally, destinations increasingly seek authentic, sustainable, and meaningful experiences that connect food, culture, heritage, wellbeing, local identity, and community engagement.

Traditional classroom-based approaches alone are often not enough to fully understand the complexity of modern tourism experiences. The Lab responds to this need by creating a living educational environment where participants engage directly with destinations, local ecosystems, businesses, producers, and communities.

Set on the island of Kos — a destination strongly connected with history, nature, hospitality, and the philosophy of wellbeing inspired by Hippocrates — the Lab combines workshops, field immersion, mentoring, storytelling, teamwork, and applied learning activities.

Participants are encouraged to co-create ideas, observe destination dynamics, interact with stakeholders, map local gastronomic assets, explore food value chains, and design gastronomy tourism concepts grounded in sustainability, authenticity, creativity, and local culture.

The Lab brings together participants from different academic, professional, and cultural backgrounds, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and international dialogue around the future of gastronomy tourism.