Wine tourism and consumers.

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the interconnections, or nexus, between wine consumer behaviour and wine tourism, including both theoretical concepts and applied research findings. Until very recently most wine tourism research had been conducted at wineries, which is very useful for evaluation of product and service quality but sheds little light on what wine consumers around the world think about wine-related travel or their actual behaviour as wine tourists. Wine tourism is defined, in terms of both demand- and supply-side perspectives. Then, in examining the interrelationships between wine consumption and wine tourism, nine specific topics are examined through literature review. These include: wine region appeal; wine region locations; wine tourism destinations; wine tourism destination choice; wine marketing and awareness; wine consumer needs; wine consumer involvement; wine tourism motivations; and wine tourist behaviour. To further illustrate the inter-connections and provide implications from applied research, results of wine-consumer research are presented. The chapter integrates and summarizes the literature from a number of perspectives. It describes an empirical study that includes a purposeful sample of wine consumers in Calgary, Canada (a city remote from wine-producing regions). They were questioned on their wine consumption habits and preferences, and their wine tourism behaviour and preferences. A Wine Involvement Scale was developed to test the theoretical proposition that those highly involved with wine would be more likely to travel for wine-related experiences, and to differentiate their travel and experiential preferences from lesser-involved wine consumers. The respondents displayed a high level of wine-related travel. The sample frame and method do not permit generalization to the whole population, but it is clear that the link between wine consumption and wine-related travel is strong in the Calgary market. Specifically, these wine consumers were found to hold distinct preferences for wine from certain countries and regions, and this did influence their wine tourism behaviour. As well, their preferred wine tourism destinations were also shaped by knowledge about regions, or wine appellations within countries. These points have been summarized in a proportional map displaying the wine tourism world from the perspective of the respondents. Factor and cluster analysis revealed two distinct segments that were highly involved with wine, and they were mostly older males. Age and gender differences were found to be significant in terms of a number of important variables. This segmentation technique and the related conclusions have important implications for wine tourism development and marketing. Conclusions are drawn on how to advance knowledge in this area, and on how tourism and wine industry managers can effectively use the available concepts and knowledge.