Senior travelers and wine tourism experience

Abstract

The number of the older population is growing rapidly, and the senior market segment will be one of the largest in history. Their consumption patterns are changing, and a deeper understanding of what type of services and products they prefer may offer countless opportunities to the tourism industry. Seniors want to experience memorable moments in their tourist activities, and wineries are no exception. In an attempt to offer a clear view of the importance of experiences, the experience economy model to wine tourism related to seniors is applied in this chapter. A case study was selected on Vivanco Winery in Rioja (Spain), which was one of the top 50 world wineries to visit in 2020. The family-owned winery Vivanco is considered one of the main tourist destinations for seniors in Rioja. Senior tourism provides this winery with an interesting opportunity to break the seasonality of the peak demand in the late summer and fall months as well as festivities and weekends. This chapter shows a successful example of the experience economy model theory applied to the seniors’ segment’s wine experiences and aims to provide an appropriate and simple framework to design and adapt post-COVID wine tourism memorable experiences for seniors.