Interesting news this week from Galway, Ireland, which is bidding to become European Region of Gastronomy 2018, a scheme aimed at showcasing unique food cultures, with a knowledge-exchange forum exploring ideas for educating for better health, sustainability, and stimulating gastronomic innovation. Gaining ERG status also affords greater opportunities to secure EU funding to develop initiatives in the food and tourism sectors.

Minho, Portugal, and Catalonia, Spain, hold the title for 2016, and three regions have jointly been announced as ERGs for 2017: Bergamo, East Lombardy, Italy; Aarhus, Central Denmark; and Riga, Gauja Region, Latvia. (Others in contention included Marseille, Provence; Malta; Brabant, Netherlands; Lombardy, Italy; and Transylvania, Romania.) Whether Scotland, now looking beyond the Year of Food and Drink, would or could also bid is a moot point. If it did, which of its 15 regions would qualify?

It’s a tantalising thought and one that surely deserves some serious discussion at the inaugural Taste for Tourism conference taking place in Oban next month. Its aim is to explore the potential for Scotland to become a global food tourism destination and it’s being organised by Food from Argyll, Argyll & the Isles Tourism Co-operative and Highlands and Islands Enterprise with support from a number of partners.

Speakers are coming from Ontario, Canada, and Pau-Bayonne institute in France, as well as Scotland. Interestingly, CalMac is hosting a dinner to showcase the leaps and bounds it is making in its on-board catering on trips from Oban to the islands.

It’s common knowledge that the Scottish food and drink sector is worth a stonking £14bn. Food exports last year reached an all-time high of £1.1bn, with the total food and drink figure at £5.1bn. The top destinations are the US, France, Spain, Germany, Singapore as well as Asia.

While this no doubt raises awareness of Scotland and its unique gastronomic attributes, does it result in inward traffic of foodies from these countries? I have no doubt appetites have been whetted, but I do wonder if Scotland is properly being marketed as a food destination.

According to a survey conducted by Visit Britain for the period between 2006-2011, a stonking 89% of tourists polled said they visited Scotland to dine out in its restaurants and a further 70% said they went to pubs. This puts Scotland’s food and drink ahead of the rest of the UK, including London, as a reason to visit (the same survey said 83% said they visited London for its restaurants, and 53% for its pubs).

The Scottish Tourism Alliance found that visitors to Scotland spent £459m on food and drink last year, the equivalent of £1 in every £5 spent, and are willing to pay 15% extra for food if it is of Scottish origin. Most visitors last year came from Europe and the US.

Frankly, I don’t think that’s nearly enough. I think we should be aiming at encouraging a much bigger spend on food and drink, and reckon tourists would happily part with £2.50 in every £5, at the very least.

This might be helped along by a more co-ordinated approach to promoting food and drink, perhaps even with the creation of a food-and-drink-specific tourism organisation.

At the moment, it seems to me that food and drink are lumped together with transport, accommodation and digital connectivity merely as ways of improving visitors’ experience of the big-ticket attractions in categories such as nature and scenery, heritage, town and cities, events and festivals, and business tourism.

Of course food has a huge part to play in these experiences and can ruin them if it’s rubbish. But surely we’ve now reached the happy stage where we can tell the world about our restaurants, independent shops, farmers’ markets and farm shops, food trails, craft distilleries, pop-up food events, and so on, and persuade them that these too are reason enough to come here?

Having said that, there’s work to be done. More producers need to learn how to supply events, how to seek funding for independent food festivals, and more of the big-chain hotels and restaurants need to be encouraged to engage with local producers.

The message does seem to be getting across - albeit it fits and starts. A London food PR recently described Glasgow as “the new Shoreditch”, presumably as a compliment to its edgy post-industrial status and burgeoning independent restaurant and food retail scene; another sign is the number of food bloggers, growers, cooks and producers who have moved to Scotland from London and elsewhere because of the potential offered by the burgeoning food scene here.

By contrast, though, I recently met some Australian tourists who had toured around Scotland and found the food “mediocre”.

They said they got the impression Scottish food was dominated by chips with everything; and were dismayed when restaurants in Orkney served rice and chips in the same dish. They had visited Glasgow and were surprised that it actually had a thriving restaurant scene, because they’d ever heard it described as such; and so on.

There’s all to play for. Watch this space.

@catedvinewriter