The Mediating Effect of Trust in Meal-Sharing Platforms on Individuals’ Intention To Experience Local Meals

Abstract

Thanks to meal-sharing apps, tourists can experience meals in the homes of local people in the cities they visit. In addition, it is also seen that they participate in various cooking workshops in the homes of local people or visit local markets with them and buy food and beverages. Therefore, meal sharing is also an important gastronomy experience. The aim is to examine the mediating effect of trust in meal-sharing applications on individuals’ intention to experience local meals within the scope of the theory of planned behavior by focusing on the local meal experience offered in sharing economic practices. Questionnaires were collected from 397 Turkish participants. It was found that the participants mostly used sharing economy applications for accommodation (Airbnb) and transportation (Uber), but some participants used meal-sharing applications, albeit on different platforms. The study found that attitudes toward digital meal-sharing platforms and subjective norms are the strongest factors in the intention to taste local meals. It is concluded that the trust factor has a partial mediating role in the relationship between intention, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. © 2025 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.