The ICTA has developed a Mystery Shopping program to help both businesses and destinations improve their culinary tourism product offerings. The Mystery Shopping program works like this: one or more of our team members frequent a business or destination over a period of time. We experience the product or service as an ordinary customer (visitor) would. All work is done in secret. No one will know that we have been hired to do this, or that we are making notes on our experiences. When enough products/services have been experienced, we report back to you with our overall observations and recommendations for your consideration.

For example, a restaurant may wish to know how well its servers explain the local sources of its menu items. A hotel may wish to learn specifically how a tourist experiences its food and beverage offerings - and get valuable feedback to improve internal processes and systems. A destination may wish to learn how easy or difficult it is for a visitor to obtain culinary tourism information on that destination. Mystery Shopping can be done for almost any business type.

Thinking of doing it yourself? See why you need the ICTA.

Each Product Development project is managed by a dedicated internal project manager using a state-of-the-art and easy-to-use team collaboration and project management system. Association members please consult your Member Benefits page to see discounts you may be entitled to.

Product Development solutions are provided by the ICTA's sister organization, Epicopia Culinary Tourism Publishing & Consulting.