Sustainable Food Festival Tourism: Integrating the Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) Model for Cultural and Environmental Resilience in Thailand

The Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) model presents a transformative framework for advancing sustainability in food festival tourism, particularly in Thailand. Food festivals serve as dynamic platforms for celebrating local culinary heritage while fostering environmental responsibility and economic resilience. This study examined the integration of the BCG model with critical success factors and community identity to assess its impact on sustainable food festival management. Employing a quantitative research approach and structural equation modeling, data were collected from 503 festival attendees to analyze key relationships among event management, community identity, and sustainability practices. The findings underscore the effectiveness of the BCG model in enhancing resource efficiency, minimizing waste, and promoting local sourcing, thus strengthening the sustainability and attractiveness of food festivals. Notably, while the role of community identity was found to be less significant than anticipated, this suggests evolving tourist preferences favoring sustainability and quality over traditional cultural attributes. These insights offer valuable implications for policymakers, event organizers, and stakeholders in designing eco-conscious, culturally enriching festivals that align with the global sustainability goals. This study contributes to the theoretical discourse on sustainable tourism and provides practical strategies to foster environmentally responsible and economically viable food festivals.