Cultural Determinants Of Food Choices By Hospitality Clientele In Commercial Catering Outlets Within Kisumu County, Kenya

When one grows up in a distinctive culture, it’s bound to influence his/her lifestyle, including adopted traditions, taboos, rituals, belief system-and perhaps most enjoyable, his/her food choice. Thus, Culture in its diversity, comprising of beliefs, taboos, traditions, as well as rituals, has dietary requirements with regard to the dishes and/ingredients that may be consumed. Melia (2011) asserts that Food choices among the global hospitality clientele are diverse; including ethnic cuisines, fusion cuisines and contemporary cuisines, with a variety of factors determining these choices. However, in spite of this broad classification of cuisines, the menu, and especially the Kenyan menu, has particularly focused on exotic national cuisines such as the French cuisine, Italian cuisine, German cuisine, Mexican cuisine, Indian cuisine etc (Jee Hye Lee, 2014), in an effort to increase and/ or maintain profitability. Moreover, the Kenyan hospitality training institutions have put more emphasis on culinary skills that incline towards the worlds’ cuisines, with very little, and sometimes no focus on the pure ethnic culinary skills within their programs. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to investigate the cultural factors that determine food choices among hospitality clientele in the commercial catering outlets. The general objective was to investigate the hospitality industry’s client food choices, and the cultural factors that determine food item choices among the clients. A cross-section survey as well as descriptive correlation survey approach was adopted, while the target population constituted hospitality clientele patronizing the food outlets in Kisumu City of Kisumu County.