Nowadays tourism is constantly expanding which is caused by constant development of tour-ism needs and offers that adapts to the new requirements of contemporary tourists. Tourist destinations requires constant innovation and adaptation of their tourist offers to be able to meet the needs of tourists and to gain the best possible position on the world tourism market. Instead of primary type of passive tourism focused on the "sun and sea", in the latest years more focus is put on different selective forms of tourism (nautical, adventurous, cultural, health...). Gastronomic tourism is emerging as a new form of tourism. Today, food is a life-style and a status symbol because our style and choice of food says something about our-selves, reason why we travel as well as the way we live. One of the motives for traveling is the search for the new and the unknown, which may also apply to food. Tourist gastronomic experience is created by unique experience that comes from the consumption of food. The subject of this paper was the development of gastronomic tourism in Istria. The paper is describing the current state of gastronomic tourism. It is also outlining key activities and steps that tourist boards take to increase its growth as well as their contribution to product devel-opment and how much impact they have on the economy from the perspective of gastronomic tourism. It is shown how gastronomical tourism impacted development of tourist destination it’s popularity, recognition and brand.