The benefits of using Gherkin include:
Requirements can be written as tests. This is especially useful when a business user is writing the requirements for UAT and the language in which it is written doubles up to become a test case.
Encouraging closer collaboration of IT with business to provide quality output, since business goals are always at the forefront of delivering the projects.
Duplication of effort in writing the requirements and again rewriting the test cases covering the requirements specified is eliminated.
Ease of understanding for any layman / business user who wants to understand what functionality is being tested.
Traceability of the test cases becomes easier, since the requirements and the test cases are the same.
The specialty of working with Gherkin is that the tests can be written in more than 30 languages, apart from English.