GASTRONOMIC HERITAGE IN HOSPITALIT Y IN VOJVODINA (THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA) – STATE AND POSSIBILITIES

The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina represents a region characterized by expressed multi-ethnicity. This unique mixture of more than 30 different nations influenced the formation of a unique and recognizable cultural heritage. Gastronomy, as one of the most impressive components of cultural heritage, has a very important role in positioning a tourist destination on the global market. The subject of this paper is the views of hos-pitality workers of gastronomic heritage in Vojvodina and its possibilities to influence further development of tourism in the region. This paper aims to provide a better insight into the mindset of hospitality workers, as carriers of the hospitality offer, about the chances of multiculturalism in the region to become a differential force in the tourism market. The research included 508 respondents employed in all hospitality sectors. The results show that the respondents believe that ethnic minorities’ dishes are insufficiently represented in offers of hospitality facilities, but that employees believe that they can be an advantage in creation a gastronomic heritage.


INTRODUCTION
The role of food is much wider and greater than biological; it is a component of almost every aspect of human life, whether it is about a family, social relations, festivals, or religious rituals, it is in the very center of action (Shukla, 2021).The process of globalization, which has both positive and negative effects on the food industry, as well as the environment, has influenced the desire of many people to try local food from many remote destinations and thus become acquainted with the gastronomy and culture of these nations (Boloborici et al., 2002).Today, gastronomy is a topic of interest to many people.Preserving tradition, recognizing the authenticity of cuisines, and developing local and regional cuisines have affected gastronomic heritage to become a very important part of the cultural heritage of a nation (Botti et al., 2015;Rivza et al., 2017).
Gastronomic heritage encompasses a wide range of aspects, from products used for food preparation, different preparation techniques, dishes, and utensils used, to actual food consumption (Romagnoli, 2019).
Experiences and opinions that tourists gain about the food they taste in a certain location greatly affect their final judgment about the location (Huete-Alcocer & Hernandez-Rojas, 2022).Gacnik (Gacnik, 2012) states that research and support of gastronomic heritage through the preservation and promotion of traditional and authentic food and beverage is very important for the development of tourism.
Gastronomic tourism can be defined as a form of tourism where a basic motive of traveling is connected with a desire of a tourist to taste certain local food and visit local gastronomic manifestations and/or restaurants (Rivza et al., 2022).Travels, where food is a primary motive, represent one of the most dynamic forms of tourism in the world today (Gheorghe et al., 2014;Nesterchuk et al., 2021).Hospitality facilities contribute to the development of gastronomic tourism and getting to know a destination with visitors by introducing traditional food into their offer (Ivanovic et al., 2022).
The subject of this paper is gastronomic heritage in AP Vojvodina, that is, the awareness of hospitality employees of the possibilities to develop gastronomic heritage and their positioning on the tourist map of Europe.
The task of the paper is to answer the following research questions through the conducted research: 1. What is the representation and the authenticity of food in the hospitality industry?2. To what extent are employees in hospitality acquainted with the significance of local food and prepared to participate in improving the offer?3. What factors affect the formation of an authentic offer directed to the sustained development of gastronomy?

LITERATURE REVIEW
Gastronomic heritage has affected the development of material segments of society, such as the development of smaller local food producers and owners of hospitality facilities as well as the development of nonmaterial segments, through the promotion of various gastronomic manifestations (Kruzmetra et al., 2018).Preservation and development of local products is a differential advantage that can help build a new or strengthen an old image of a location (Alonso, 2013).
Barska and Wojciechowska-Solis state that the development of a gastronomic heritage can have significant economic and social benefits for the functioning of a country (Barska & Wojciechowska-Solis, 2018).The potential of gastronomic identity development for improving a country's economy (Bukharov & Berezka, 2018) has affected traditional food and its influence on tourism to become a goal of government strategies in numerous countries (Lin et al., 2021).This is supported by the fact that more than 70% of tourists in Great Britain are interested in trying local food and beverages, while over 950 million Euros were spent on food and beverages in Germany during Octoberfest in 2007 (Kim et al., 2009). Tomic et al. (Tomic et al., 2018) state that local food sales in the USA grew from 11 to 12.5 billion American dollars between 2013 and 2018, whereas they have risen by 93% in Italy since 2007.
In addition to the influence on the development of the economy, gastronomic heritage affects other types of tourism as well.Besides tourists whose primary motive for visiting a destination is gastronomy, there is another group of tourists for whom gastronomy poses a secondary motive for a visit; therefore, proper development of gastronomy in a region would also attract a large number of these tourists, and would consequently develop other forms of tourism as well (Perez Galvez et al., 2021).Taking this into account, the gastronomy of a region affects the development of the overall image of the region in the minds of visitors (Cordova-Buiza et al., 2021).Consuming local food and respecting customs is one of the quickest and most direct ways to get to know a locality and population (Bardhi et al., 2010).
Food and beverages present some of the basic factors of the attractiveness of a destination that is evenly recognized in different types of destinations; therefore, attracting tourists motivated by food is one of the basic goals of numerous destinations aiming to increase consumption in a destination (Daries Ramon et al., 2018;Grubor et al., 2022).
Gastronomic heritage, especially in a multiethnic country, plays a great role in forming a national cultural identity of the country (Noriza et al., 2012).To preserve the identity, it is necessary to invest an additional effort in adapting traditions and customs that existed in the past with challenges of the present (Cleveland et al., 2009).Creating a gastronomic and cultural heritage is not a fast and simple process but presents continuous efforts aiming to improve how tourists relate to the destination (Avieli, 2013).
The research conducted by Kalenjuk-Pivarski et al. (Kalenjuk-Pivarski et al., 2023) shows that hospitality employees in AP Vojvodina believe that activities such as better marketing promotion and an increase in diversity of gastronomic offers can increase recognizability of gastronomic heritage of the region.

The place of research
The place of research is AP Vojvodina, a region situated in the North of the Republic of Serbia.The capital city is Novi Sad which represents a popular tourist destination on the banks of the Danube River.The province has a population of 1,931,809, of whom 66.8% are Serbian, and the rest is divided into 30 different ethnic minorities.Ethnic groups include Hungarian 13%, Slovakian 2.6%, Croatian 2.4%, Romani 2.2%, and Romanian with 1.3%.Montenegrins and other peoples (Bunjevci, Rusyns, Albanians, Bulgarians, Gorani, Yugoslavs, Macedonians, Muslims, Germans, Russians, Slovenians, Ukrainians, and Czechs) make up 10.6%, according to research conducted by Bubalo-Zivkovic et al. and

The structure of the questionnaire
The first part of the research consisted of socio-demographic data including gender, age, education level, type of hospitality facility, job position, years of experience in hospitality, and the location of the hospitality facility.
The second part referred to the process of collecting data on how well the respondents are familiar with the representation and authenticity of dishes in a hospitality offer and how willing they are to participate in improving the hospitality offer.The first group consisted of six, and the second of eight statements, and the respondents could answer those statements in a range from 1 to 5 (1-I strongly disagree, 2-I disagree, 3-I neither agree nor disagree, 4-I mostly agree, and 5-I completely agree).
The third part of the questionnaire refers to factors that can affect an offer and the choice of dishes that guests make.That is, whether hospitality facilities have special requests for these dishes, whether the price of ethnic minority dishes is significantly different from others, as well as whether it has a role in the selection of these dishes.

Sampling
In order for the obtained data to be as relevant as possible, the ratio of respondents from the region of Vojvodina was in accordance with the number of workers in hospitality from the given areas according to data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (2018).A database with email addresses of restaurants and other hospitality facilities in Vojvodina was formed, and the questionnaire was distributed electronically.All respondents were informed about the kind of research and the fact that the results are anonymous.Data col-lection lasted from May 2022 to October 2022 -even though some took longer than expected.700 Surveys were sent, and 508 were properly completed in the end, after which the results were subjected to a detailed statistical analysis.

Statistical data processing
In order to obtain answers to the research questions, the obtained data were subjected to statistical processing actions by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences SPSS v23.00.Descriptive statistics were used to describe the socio-demographic characteristics of the sample, answers of the respondents related to a region with the most preserved gastronomic heritage, attractiveness of dishes, the most wanted dishes of ethnic groups, and to describe respondents' answers related to suggestions made for better recognition and placement of gastronomic heritage in tourism.

Sample description
The research included 508 respondents employed in the hospitality industry in AP Vojvodina, and the structure of the respondents is shown in Table 1.In addition to the gender structure, age, and level of education, the table shows relevant data on the type of hospitality facility where a respondent is employed, their job position, and years of experience in hospitality.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The analysis of attitudes of employees in hospitality about food representation and authenticity The opinion of respondents was divided on the question presented in Table 2, whether the offer of dishes of various minority ethnic groups in hospitality facilities in Vojvodina is authentic (Q 1 ).The values of the obtained statistical indicators (mode = 4, coefficient of variation = 31.21,M=3.30) show that although the majority of respondents (171) agree that dishes are mostly authentic, the coefficient of variation and the arithmetic mean tell us that there are bounces in the answers and that we can state that the authenticity of a dish depends on the facility.When it comes to the question of whether dishes of different minority ethnic groups are adequately represented in the offer of a hospitality facility in Vojvodina (Q 2 ), the values of the obtained statistical indicators (mode = 2, coefficient of variation = 36.41,M = 2.79) tell us that most respondents believe they are not (183).A slight differentiation in the answers of the respondents can be seen when it comes to answering the question of whether dishes in hospitality facilities are prepared with local and authentic ingredients (Q 3 ).Most respondents, 168 of them, believe that dishes are mostly prepared with local and authentic ingredients (the mode has a value of 4), but the arithmetic mean (M=3.34) and the coefficient of variation (32.25) indicate that the situation could be improved.
A more uniform attitude of the respondents was expressed in the answers to the questions about whether the gastronomic offer in hospitality facilities in Vojvodina requires an expansion of the assortment (Q 4 ) and whether a new gastronomic offer that would include a larger number of authentic dishes in the hospitality offer of Vojvodina should be created (Q 5 ).The respondents answered that they mostly agree that the offer of hospitality facilities in Vojvodina requires an expansion of the assortment (M=3.88,SD=1.085, the mode and the median have a value of 4) and that they mostly agree that a new gastronomic offer that would include a larger number of authentic dishes in the hospitality offer should be created (M=3.98,SD=0.975, the mode and the median have the value of 4).
A greater difference in attitudes occurs in the answers to the question of whether ethnic minority dishes in hospitality facilities in Vojvodina are not authentic enough (Q 6 ).The value of the coefficient of variation of 33.18% indicates this, and most respondents (169) neither agree nor disagree with this statement.We can state that a sufficient authenticity of ethnic minority dishes in the hospitality offer depends on the type of hospitality facility.

Analysis of familiarity of hospitality employees with the significance of local food and their willingness to participate in improving the offer
The second group of questions (Table 2) included the familiarity with the significance of local and authentic food and the willingness to participate in the creation of new gastronomic offers.
The answer to the question of whether the number of tourists in Vojvodina could be increased thanks to authentic food and beverages (Q 1 ) got the highest arithmetic mean in this group of questions (M=4.20,mead-ian=4, mode=5).Most respondents, 236 of them, completely agree that the number of tourists could increase.
The respondents have an almost uniform opinion on the question of whether they are familiar with the significance of local and authentic food offers for tourism development (Q 2 ) and whether they believe that an authentic food offer contributes to the promotion of a locality (Q 3 ).The values of the obtained statistical indicators (M=3.88, the median and the mode have a value of 4) show that almost all surveyed respondents agree that they are largely familiar with the significance of a local and authentic offer of food for tourism development and that they mostly believe that an authentic food offer contributes to the promotion of a locality (M=4.15, the median and the mode have a value of 4).
The largest number of respondents of the total of 508 gave the highest grades (the mode has a value of 5), i.e. they completely agree with the statement, 203 of them with the statement (Q 4 ) that an authentic food offer contributes to an increase in the number of visitors and satisfaction of their needs; 215 agree with the statement (Q 5 ) that authentic food and beverages can have a positive effect on the economic growth of the region; and 219 agree with the statement (Q 6 ) that food and beverages can have a positive effect in tourism on the promotion and the development of other tourist products and services on a local and regional level.
We can see a slight differentiation in the answers to question (Q 7 ) of whether the respondents are familiar with the diet of ethnic minorities in Vojvodina and question (Q 8 ) of whether they would participate in promoting food and beverages of ethnic minorities as ethnic food in order to increase the number of tourists in Vojvodina.The value of the coefficient of variation of over 30 in both cases indicates this.The largest number of respondents (199) mostly agree that they are familiar with the diet of ethnic minorities in Vojvodina, but the arithmetic mean (M=3.43) in this group of questions is rated the lowest.Most respondents, 179 of them, would participate in the promotion of food and beverages of ethnic minorities as ethnic food in order to increase the number of tourists.
Based on the answers to this group of questions, significantly higher rates of respondents can be seen; therefore, we may state that the respondents, employees in the hospitality sector, are quite well familiar with the significance of local and authentic food, but that even though hospitality employees recognize its importance, the authenticity and representation of these dishes in the offer of hospitality facilities is not present on the adequate level.The reason for this may as well be the lowest-rated answer of the respondents in the second group of questions, i.e, weaker familiarity of hospitality employees with diets of ethnic minorities.

Analysis of factors that can affect an offer and choice of dishes
In the next part of the research, it was investigated whether the tourist market was researched before the formation of the gastronomic offer, whether hospitality facilities have special requirements for these dishes, whether prices of ethnic minority dishes differ significantly from others, as well as whether price plays a role in choosing these dishes.It was also investigated what affects the inclusion of these dishes in the hospitality offer.Table 4 presents the structure of the responses.
Regarding the question of whether the management of a hospitality facility researches the tourist market before the formation of a gastronomic offer (which includes dishes of ethnic minorities), 52.6% of the respondents answered that they agree that hospitality facilities do not do research.It can be a reason why the offer of ethnic minority dishes is not adequately represented, nor authentic.
Regarding the question whether hospitality facilities have special demands for these dishes, 20.1% of the respondents agree that they do, which leads to the conclusion that adequate representation of these dishes is necessary because there is a demand.
Regarding the question of whether the price plays a role when choosing these dishes, 50.4% of the respondents believe that the price plays a role when ordering these dishes.When researching about the prices of these dishes, 89.6% of the respondents agree that they are of a similar level to the prices of other dishes; however, a significant percentage of respondents (5.1%) claim that the prices of these dishes are significantly higher.We may state that the prices of these dishes depend on the facility.One should pay attention to the price when it is formed so that it does not stand out; optionally, because of possible costs, work on reducing the portions or use another way to reach a price with which a hospitality facility will not operate at a loss, and guests will be able to try these dishes prepared in an adequate manner, and not at the expense on quality.When researching the factors that depend on which dishes will be included in the offer of a hospitality facility, many reasons were mentioned.The highest percentage of the respondents stated that it was a demand for the dish (58.7%), followed by cost-effectiveness (36.6%), market research (23.2%), restaurant location (22.8%), affordability of ingredients (20.1%) and other (0.2%).The highest percentage when deciding on a dish for the menu is the demand for the dish by the guest, considering that guests are not familiar with the adequate offer of dishes of ethnic minorities (page 105); therefore, the demand for dishes of ethnic minorities is not adequate in order to include those dishes in the hospitality offer.Therefore, this could also be one of the reasons for the insufficient representation of these dishes in the hospitality offer in Vojvodina.

CONCLUSION
Based on the conducted research and the asked research questions, the following conclusions are reached: • To the first research question, which read "What is the representation and authenticity of food in hospitality?", the respondents answered that the representation of dishes of ethnic minorities in the hospitality offer is low and that it is necessary to expand the assortment of the offer.The respondents believe that the offer is authentic but that the prepared dishes are not authentic enough, i.e. that they deviate from traditional ways of preparation and original recipes.These results confirm the research conducted by Grubor et al. (Grubor et al., 2022).• The second research question read: "How well are employees in hospitality familiar with the significance of local food and willing to participate in improving the offer?"Based on the results, we can conclude that employees in hospitality in AP Vojvodina are familiar with the possibility that the inclusion of authentic food and beverages can affect the increase in the number of tourists and their pleasure.Employees are mostly familiar with the diets of ethnic minorities in Vojvodina, and they express a willingness to participate in the promotion of food and beverages of ethnic minorities on the hospitality market with a goal to increase the number of tourists in Vojvodina.• The last research question was: "What factors affect the formation of authentic offer directed to the sustained development of gastronomy?"The respondents believe that there is not a special demand for dishes of ethnic minorities, and that the prices of these dishes are in line with the prices of other dishes.As the main reason for including dishes of ethnic minorities in the offer of hospitality facilities, they name a demand for these dishes as well as the cost-effectiveness of preparing those dishes.
confirmed by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia in 2016 (Bubalo-Zivkovic et al., 2019; Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2016).

Table 1 .
The socio-demographic structure of respondents employed in hospitality and tourism facilities

Table 2 .
Attitudes of hospitality and tourism employees about the representation and authenticity of food

Table 3 .
Familiarity of hospitality employees with the significance of local food and the willingness to participate in an improvement of the offer

Table 4 .
Factors that can affect a formation of a gastronomic offer with dishes of ethnic minorities