Management and Marketing of Wine Tourism Business

Theory, Practice, and Cases

Marianna Sigala, Richard N. S. Robinson, Marianna Sigala, Richard N. S. Robinson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319754611
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319754628
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industria dell'ospitalità e del turismo
• Index: Business

This book links research in wine marketing/management and wine tourism, offering international and multidisciplinary perspectives.  Addressing the evolving nature of the wine tourism industry and market, the book brings in new research streams and technology advances such as; social media, customer empowerment and engagement, co-creation, social / responsible marketing and wine consumption. Each section includes an introductory chapter written by the editors discussing the aims and the chapters of the section. Section chapters provide theoretical and research based insights with practical implications, while every section is also complemented with case studies that further enrich the practice and industry implications of theory. Researchers will find in this book a holistic analysis of research and cases relating to the management and marketing of wine tourism businesses and visitors. 

© The Author(s) 2019

Marianna Sigala and Richard N. S. Robinson (eds.)Management and Marketing of Wine Tourism Businesshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75462-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: The Evolution of Wine Tourism Business Management

Marianna Sigala¹ and Richard N. S. Robinson²

(1)

University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

(2)

University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Marianna Sigala (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Richard N. S. Robinson

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

WineTourismEvolution, researchResearchTrends, demand, supply, co-creation, strategiesInnovation, experiences

End Abstract

Introduction

Over recent years, wine tourism has been increasing in volume and importance all over the globe. The growth of wine tourism is driven by reinforcing powers between a demand pull and a supply push. Wine tourism has evolved into a popular lifestyle leisure and tourism activity attracting and appealing to a great variety of market segments. Indeed, a transformed and diversified wine tourism demand reveals that wine tourism is no longer an activity strictly reserved for wine lovers wishing to enjoy wine tasting. Nor is wine tourism a pursuit of the elite and wine connoisseur alone. Instead, wine tourists of all manner go to wineries to also visit and immerse themselves into the winescape (the wine tourism terroir ) for experiencing and learning about the winery ’s landscape, scenery, traditions, culture and heritage . In fact, research findings show that the attractiveness and the authenticity of the winescape plays a more critical role in generating and driving wine tourism demand than the provision of high-quality wine (Kim and Bonn 2016; Sigala and Dimopoulou 2017). Research also shows that visitation of cellar doors leads to increased (direct) wine sales, customer education and relationship building that results in long term benefits for wineries (Hall et al. 2000). In this vein, satisfying the needs of the new wine tourism consumers by developing wine tourism experiences that embed the physical, cultural and natural resources of wine destinations and wineries has become a strategic priority for wineries and wine destinations alike.

The diversification of wine tourism into experiences beyond wine tasting and the cellar door as well as the appeal of wine tourism to attract a wide variety of people are explicitly reflected in widely known definitions of wine tourism. Wine tourism is conceptualised as:

…a form of consumer behavior based on the appeal of wine and wine regions , and a development and marketing strategy for the wine industry and destinations in which wineries and wine-related experiences are the dominant attractions. (Getz and Brown 2006, p. 147)

…visiting wine-associated destinations to taste wine and have other favorable experiences . (Hall and Macionis 1998)

Wineries use wine tourism as a way to attract, educate and build long-term emotional and social ties with their guests and so, ultimately drive long-term financial, promotional and marketing benefits. Wine destinations consider and use wine tourism as a tourism development strategy that generates sustainable value through the promotion of sectoral synergies, particularly food (cf. Getz et al. 2014), but also arts, crafts other cultural activities, enabling multiplier economic effects and socio-cultural value by valorising local culture and empowering local communities and entrepreneurs (Bruwer 2003; Nella et al. 2013).

The increasing importance and growth of wine tourism has been followed by, and is also reflected in, the substantial influx of research in wine tourism (Bonn et al. 2018). However, the majority of wine tourism research has so far primary focused on definitional and developmental issues such as the conceptualisation and understanding of wine tourism and wine tourists (Hall and Prayag 2017), regional wine tourism development, the design of wine routes and branding and marketing of wine destinations . Actually, segmentation and motivational studies of wine tourists had been dominating wine tourism research (e.g. Alant and Bruwer 2004; Carmichael 2005; Getz and Brown 2006; Hall and Macionis 1998; Hall et al. 2000; Williams and Young 1999). On the other hand, there are very few studies focusing on issues related to the strategic development and operational issues of wine tourism businesses. Few studies exist related to strategic decision-making (Alonso et al. 2015; Lavandoski et al. 2016), entrepreneurship (Dawson et al. 2011), innovation (Alonso and Bressan 2016; Baird and Hall 2016) and recently social media for wine tourism marketing (cf. Alonso et al. 2013; Reyneke et al. 2011). Thus, there is a lack of systematic research to guide wine tourism business to effectively and efficiently develop and implement their strategies and product offerings.

Rapidly increasing competition at a local but also international scale also means that wine tourism firms face more challenges in attracting, maintaining and developing their visitor market share. As competition intensifies and the wine tourism market also becomes more sophisticated and diverse, the urgency to conduct more research in order to help wine tourism firms how to survive but also differentiate in this highly competitive world becomes more intense. To achieve that, research should start by paying more attention to the two major drivers and factors influencing the management of wine tourism businesses namely, the wine tourism demand and the wine tourism supply. The need to adopt a customer-focused and—oriented strategy is well documented in the literature and thus, research aiming to better understand and unravel the major factors influencing and driving change within the wine tourism market is a must, as has been noted previously (Cambourne et al. 2000). In addition, wine tourism firms that succeed are those that manage to design strategies that consider competitors’ actions, collaborate with other (different and even competing) firms and/or lead industry innovation . Thus, research looking into competitive issues relating to the wine tourism supply (such as innovation , differentiation and collaboration) is critically important for informing the management and marketing of wine tourism firms.

To better guide future research, the following sections identify and discuss the driving forces shaping and transforming wine tourism demand as well as wine tourism supply/firms. Ideas for future research are also provided.

The Transformed Wine Tourist

Profile and Behaviour of the Wine Tourism Market

Wine tourism research has been dominated by studies focusing on understanding the wine tourist profile and behaviour (Bonn et al. 2018). Studies have investigated issues related to: wine tourists’ experiences ; perceived value and service quality; motivations; socio-demographic and psychographic profiles and their relation to lifestyle; post-visit behaviours (Hall and Prayag 2017). Market segmentation studies have also revealed that psychographic profiles, similar to food tourism (e.g. Robinson and Getz 2014), can better identify discrete wine tourism groups and more effectively explain wine tourists’ behaviour in terms of their winery experiences , preferences and expenditures (Alonso et al. 2007). However, research aiming to understand wine tourists is reported to have failed to reveal the impact of cultural and country differences amongst wine tourists and motivations, as well as the impact of country and tourism destination branding and image on wine tourists behaviour (Bruwer and Sigala 2016). The latter is critically significant, as research increasingly shows that the brand image and reputation of both the wine terroir (country-of-origin impact) (Famularo et al. 2010) and the winescape (the difference of place of the tourist terroir , Bruwer 2003) critically affects wine tourists demand, selection and expenditure on wine products, experiences and destinations (Brown and Getz 2005). Moreover, because of these wine region effects on wine tourism demand, wine tourism suppliers and developers cannot strictly rely on international statistics of wine demand, while cross-regional comparisons become dangerous and diluting (Sigala and Bruwer 2016). Thus, there is an increasing need to study wine tourists on a country-to-country or better still on a region-to-region basis.

In addition, a deeper and updated understanding of consumer profiling and behaviour in wine tourism also becomes more paramount when considering the rapid evolution of the wine tourism offering and the continuous diversification of its market segments. As wine tourism is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: The Evolution of Wine Tourism Business Management
• Part I. The Market of Wine Tourism: Profiling, Segmentation and Behavior
• Part II. Capturing the Market: Marketing, Distribution and Promotion
• Part III. Experience Management in Wine Tourism: Design and Differentiation
• Back Matter