Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 27 (2023) 100759 Available online 7 January 2023 2212-571X/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The influence of special dietary needs on tourist satisfaction and behavioral intention: Satisfiers or dissatisfiers? Zohre Mohammadi a, f , Abhishek Singh Bhati b , Valeriya Radomskaya c, d, * , Alexander Josiassen c, e a Research Dean Office, James Cook University Singapore, 149 Sims Drive, James Cook University, 387380, Singapore b Campus Dean, James Cook University Singapore, 149 Sims Drive, James Cook University, 387380, Singapore c James Cook University Singapore, 149 Sims Drive, James Cook University, 387380, Singapore d Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University, Visiting Scholar, Minina St, 31А, Nizhny Novgorod, 603155, Russia e Copenhagen Business School, Centre for Tourism and Culture Management, Denmark f School of Management and Marketing, University of Greenwich, UK A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Destination evaluation Behavioral intention Dietary needs Satisfiers/dissatisfiers Religious/medical/lifestyle diet Singapore ABSTRACT In a globalized world, incoming tourists bring with them a variety of expectations. As destinations are coming to accept the variability of consumer needs, destination managers seek to identify additional factors that can determine tourists’ evaluations and intentions. This study promotes the ability to satisfy tourist dietary needs as an antecedent factor influencing the experience outcomes. It is among the first to demonstrate the links between diverse tourist dietary needs, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. We found that all three groups of dietary needs (religious, medical, lifestyle) have an effect on satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Our results confirm that the relationship between tourist dietary needs and destination evaluation and intentions is not symmetrical. The higher the perceived importance of tourists’ dietary needs, the more likely they are to be satisfied with a destination that can cater to their needs. Satisfied tourists are more likely to revisit and recommend the desti- nation to others. However, the effects of dietary needs on dissatisfaction are not significant. The destination’s inability to satisfy dietary needs does not necessarily reduce willingness to recommend or revisit. The results of this study support the notion that destination’s dietary preparedness is associated with better experience out- comes. The study concludes with important implications for destination managers. 1. Introduction The financial constraints imposed by the recent pandemic require that tourism practitioners seek new ways to increase the effectiveness and sophistication of marketing efforts while utilising existing resources. For many destinations, an important tourism resource is food (Hender- son, 2004; Okumus, 2020). The relationship between food and tourism is a subject of increasing attention (Ellis et al., 2018), with food tourism making considerable progress over the past two decades in both academia and the industry (Okumus, 2020). Food consumption is a source of many behavioral adaptations (Rozin, 1999). Perhaps, this explains why despite continuous research efforts, there is still a large gap in our knowledge of how food experiences shape tourists’ perceptions of a destination and their future behaviors (Choe & Kim, 2018). In tourism literature, the perception of food as an indisputable attraction has been challenged in recent years by stressing the compli- cations and impediments experienced by tourists while travelling (Cohen & Avieli, 2004; Huang et al., 2019). It is unclear how different aspects of food related experiences affect destination evaluations and future intentions. This research investigates the multifarious nature of food-related experiences, while paying close attention to tourists’ needs. Needs in a food tourism context encompass a variety of aspects, including food safety and hygiene issues (Tarulevicz & Ooi, 2019), he- donic food attributes (Mak et al., 2012), as well as authenticity and experiential value (Radomskaya, 2018; Sims, 2009). However, the in- ternal self-regulation practices such as special dietary needs have remained relatively understudied in tourism and hospitality research (Huang et al., 2019; Oktadiana et al., 2020). This is surprising, since * Corresponding author. James Cook University Singapore, 149 Sims Drive, James Cook University, 387380, Singapore. E-mail addresses: zohre.mohammadi@jcu.edu.au (Z. Mohammadi), Abhishek.bhati@jcu.edu.au (A.S. Bhati), valeriya.radomskaya@my.jcu.edu.au (V. Radomskaya), alexander.josiassen@jcu.edu.au, aj.marktg@cbs.dk (A. Josiassen). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Destination Marketing & Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jdmm https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2022.100759 Received 21 December 2021; Received in revised form 16 October 2022; Accepted 25 December 2022