Promoting local tastes and constructing local identities through the websites of Italian tourism boards: a corpus-based study on Emilia-Romagna

In recent years, food and wine tourism has played an increasingly significant role in the economic development of several countries, particularly Italy, where culinary traditions are a key part of cultural identity. This growing relevance has led companies, local producers, and public institutions — especially those based in areas that attract international tourists due to the popularity and uniqueness of their food and wine products — to develop policies, communication strategies, and marketing initiatives aimed at promoting and exporting local flavours effectively. While this phenomenon has been widely explored in economic studies, linguists have also begun to conduct research on this topic, particularly in relation to how English is employed in the promotion of local food and wine products. Within this context, although previous research has focused on communication and promotion strategies used by Made-in-Italy brands and local producers, little attention has been given to the public sector, and specifically to local tourism boards. This study aims to address this gap by analysing a small sample of texts about local food and wine products retrieved from the English versions of websites of local and regional tourism boards in Emilia-Romagna. Using the tools of corpus linguistics, the goal is to identify the linguistic and discursive strategies used by these institutions to promote local products and construct a regional identity based on food and wine heritage. The findings show that tourism boards largely focus on providing detailed information about the local products and promoting them by emphasizing their uniqueness and authenticity, while also shaping an identity that is deeply rooted in the local territory.