Wine Tourism Research: The State of Play

Abstract

Research on wine tourism has expanded rapidly since the early 1990s with approximately two thirds of the literature coming from Australia and New Zealand, countries with not only substantial wine tourism but also a long record of wine marketing research. Of the remaining literature the dominant source countries for research are Canada and the US. Seven themes are identified from the literature and are discussed in turn: the wine tourism product and its development; wine tourism and regional development; the size of the winery visitation market; winery visitor segments; the behavior of the winery visitor; the nature of the visitor experience; and emerging area of research on the biosecurity risks posed by visitors. For each of the themes future research challenges and issues are identified. The review concludes by noting that although there is now a significant catalogue of research in the field, methods are still relatively crude and studies still tend to be regionally focused and quite generic in nature. There is therefore a need not only to improve the means by which results from different locations and populations can be compared but also to employ greater sophistication in the employment of qualitative and quantitative techniques in their examination.