Management and Marketing of Wine Tourism Business

Effective communication with consumers underpins growth in wine knowledge that, in turn, contributes to growth in wine consumption. Indeed, tasting notes may enhance consumers’ experiences of wine. Yet wine language is full of fuzzy concepts. In this chapter, we consider the language used to talk about wine, specifically the humanlike features of wine (e.g., wine is described as honest, sexy, shy, or brooding). We demonstrate that metaphoric language is integral to the experience of wine and influences consumer behaviour. We discuss practical implications for the cellar door experience, and for effective and ethical wine communication. We conclude that metaphoric language is a pedagogical and cultural platform for engaging younger wine tourists in the cellar door experience, which is a significant revenue source for micro, small, and medium wineries.

This research was undertaken to examine the relationship between the wine tourism activities of consumers and their subsequent wine choices. Exploratory research was undertaken giving specific attention to wine tourism, first, as a factor of influence on decision-making, second, on levels of consumer involvement and third on long-term consumer loyalty. A convenience sample of 12 wine consumers in Dublin participated in the study. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to gather the qualitative data used. The findings clearly establish links made by consumers between their wine tourism experiences and their subsequent wine purchase preferences. The findings highlight the importance of facilitating the co-creation of memorable wine tourism experiences as a determinant of improved consumer involvement as well as the development of long-term consumer loyalty. Implications for industry practitioners suggest a continued focus on the provision of unique wine tourism experiences; while the findings support the theoretical links between consumers own past experiences and their use as a valuable information source when making purchase decisions.

Following the growing interest of tourists towards the enogastronomic peculiarities of the countries visited, many Italian destinations have started offering food and wine-related activities, with wine marking a competitive advantage. Italian wine production ranks among the top in the world, with producers shifting from quantity to quality and organic and biodynamic cultivation. Organic wines are therefore becoming an interesting product for wine tourists and wine event attendees. This book chapter presents the results of exploratory research on organic and biodynamic wine consumers and provides wine destinations, wine event organisers and wine cellars with information aimed at creating market strategies to target this ever-growing sub-niche. Specifically, this work shows that consumers of organic/biodynamic wines are more likely to attend wine events than non-organic/biodynamic consumers. Therefore, tourism destinations willing to enter the sub-niche of organic/biodynamic market could use this form of events to strengthen their image and position themselves in the market. Beyond being a place for approaching and educating consumers, wine events are a moment of tasting, purchasing and socialising. Therefore, quality and variety of wineries in the event, pleasant atmosphere and good vibes can improve the satisfaction of attendees and encourage wine purchase and loyalty.

Wine tourism research has solely focused on understanding the motivations and profile of (existing) wine tourists neglecting to investigate the factors constraining a person to become a wine tourist. As wine tourism becomes a popular leisure activity for a great variety of people, there is an urgent need to also identify constraints that may inhibit potential market groups to be converted to wine tourists. Becoming a parent does not mean that you need to stop visiting wineries, and so, people with children may represent a latent wine tourism demand that might be worth targeting. This study adopts a constrained-based approach for investigating the reasons refraining people with children to visit wineries. Findings are collected from residents and tourists in Adelaide and provide useful theoretical and practical insights into the profile of this potential wine tourism market, their motivations to visit wineries as well as the constraints inhibiting them to undertake wine tourism. The chapter concludes by providing ideas for future research as well as suggestions about how wineries can address these constraints for untapping into this overlooked wine tourism market and driving a new demand.

Winey Kids is a great case study showing how to set-up an information—and community—based intermediary model supporting both the wine demand and supply with the aim to activate and grow a latent demand market segment related to wine tourists with children. The case study discusses the two-sided business model of Winey Kids, the information services that it provides to both the win consumers and suppliers and the social media activities undertaken for nurturing and mainlining an online tribe of winey parents. Winey Kids aims to: help winey parents to become aware and facilitate their decision-making and wine visits planning process by easily searching, finding, evaluating and accessing information about kids’ friendly wineries and wine destinations; provide advice and a communication channel to wineries for better understanding the needs, the requirements and the behaviour of the winey parent market so that they can better customise their offerings and make them more appealing and accessible to this market segment; and assist wine regions to promote themselves to a niche wine market segment by creating a positive image of a children-friendly wine destination. The case study is a great example explaining how wine tourism firms can better understand and activate a latent demand by developing strategies aiming to address the constraints inhibiting this demand to materialise. The case study is also a good example showing how to use social media for building an online tourism community and a brand community for marketing information purposes.

Wine (tourism) research has solely focused on the use and adoption of social media by wine tourism firms, ignoring to examine how and why social media change the wine consumers/tourists’ behavior. To address this gap, this chapter adopted and contextualized the Labrecque et al. (Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(4): 257–269, 2013) model of online consumer sources of power for identifying and explaining how the current internet and social media advances empower the wine consumers/tourists and influence their decision-making and behavior. The application of this power model was illustrated by identifying and analyzing the business models of various related wine tech companies. The analysis of wine tech companies did not only confirm the application of this online consumer power model within the wine context, but also expanded the model by identifying additional sources of power empowering and transforming the role of wine consumers/tourists within the wine distribution chain. Specifically, innovative wine tech companies empower the wine consumers/tourists to be converted from passive consumers of wine offerings to co-creators, co-designers, co-marketers and even co-investors of their own personalized wine tourism experiences. To enable wine consumers/tourists to become capable and skilled wine co-producers, wine tech companies have also developed edutainment online business models aiming to empower its users with the necessary wine knowledge and skills.

Social media platforms, in particular Facebook, continuously gain in relevance for personal communication and branding activities. However, wineries still lack either a profound understanding of online marketing strategies and/or lack methodologies that robustly analyze wineries’ Facebook management over a longer period of time. This study demonstrates the mechanism of wine consumer engagement facilitated by Facebook-based marketing. This paper presents a case study of the Austrian capital Vienna, a popular wine tourism destination and will at first investigate the presence of the wineries on Facebook and their marketing-based strategies. The study follows a data-driven approach and analyses large amounts of interaction data. The data pool for the analysis consists of the activity of the public pages for their entire history of existence, usually several years, acquired through Facebook’s official API. The results show that the wineries are rather passive on Facebook, with an average activity of around 20 posts per month, dominantly posting pictures. The wineries have a solid fan base, with an average of 1195 fans and 14 reactions per post. In order for the wineries to engage with their fans, they should align with posting in the morning and afternoon preferably. Wineries are advised to engage frequently and integrate a more creative Facebook presence to engage with their consumers.

Internet advances are changing the way consumer select, buy and consume wine and wine tourism experiences. Wine research has boomed investigating the impact of internet and social media on wine demand and supply, while research in wine tourism is lagging behind. To target and satisfy the new wine tourists, wineries increasingly use online channels and intermediaries to promote and sell their wine tourism offerings, but without any robust decision-making process, knowledge and criteria. To address this gap, this study reviews literature related to (e-)intermediaries in tourism in order to provide a theoretical understanding about the benefits, the costs and the criteria for using e-intermediaries in the wine tourism sector. The applicability and the practical implications of this theory are shown by discussing the business model and the value proposition of a new e-intermediary entering the wine distribution chain, (namely UberVINO) as well as by collecting primary data from wineries in Adelaide Hills (South Australia) whereby UberVINO was offered as a service for several months in 2017. Wineries were interviewed about the factors influencing their decision to use (or not to use) UberVINO and the criteria they (would have) used for assessing the UberVINO performance. The study revealed that despite the promised benefits of UberVINO, wineries have also expressed several concerns and risks related to financial, marketing, strategic and operational disadvantages and costs. Overall, the findings provide a useful evaluation framework and criteria based on which wineries can select and evaluate e-intermediaries for promoting and selling their offerings. The chapter concludes by providing ideas for future research and practical implications for wineries and wine destination management organizations alike.

This research intends to fill the gap on holistic customer experiences in the offline and online retail environments helping understand the developing omni channel business environment, through the lens of smart tourism. Smart wine-tourism consists in using digital technologies such as Wifi and IoT to target nearby wine tourists and invite them to enjoy a wine experience while they visit rural areas. To compensate for these gaps, we have conceptualized customer experiences in offline and online retail environments through a literature review. Twenty semi-direct interviews were conducted using an interview guide and analyzed thanks to manual coding. Findings and analysis from winery and wine tourism professionals as well as wine consumer opinions on digital connectivity are presented. The research results provide insight into the different aspects of what a holistic online and offline customer experience means. The results highlight the importance of providing Internet access, thanks to Wifi terminals and IoT along the roads in touristic areas, to facilitate winery visits and or other touristic activities. Wifi could provide the digital infrastructure necessary for businesses to target tourists through location-based systems (LBS) and push notifications. This research is limited to the Sonoma County, California wine tourism destinations. It uses coding rather than analytical tools enabling frequencies of occurrence in a more systematic manner to be discovered. It is wine oriented and feedback from other professionals of the food industry would be valuable.

The wine industry is intensely competitive and characterized by significant churn rates as businesses struggle to remain commercially viable. These adverse market forces typically denote a “red ocean”, a situation where competing producers are required to trade on price, and bottom-line profits are increasingly whittled away in the competitive battle to survive (see Kim and Mauborgne 2005). Given this scenario, this chapter explores the justification for market innovation, and presents a slate of so-called “blue ocean” innovations recently observed in the wine industries of New Zealand and South Africa. Each innovation is positioned within a particular innovation “pathway”, including, for example, the search for alternative industries, buyer groups, synchronous products and services, and emerging trends. Showcased from New Zealand is the development of an innovative wine buyers’ club, and the sale of varietal-specific grape juice. Included from South Africa is the development of a unique coffee flavoured pinotage, a rooibos tea flavoured merlot, the use of clay pots as a replacement of oak barrels, and the production of wine flavoured ice-lollies. The chapter concludes by proposing a typology of wine innovation, positioning the cited innovations across a continuum that spans commodities, brands, services and experiences.

Wine tourism is a significant way for wineries to drive and boost profits. Thus, wineries and their related stakeholders (associations, institutions, and professionals) must carefully plan their wine tourism strategies. To achieve these, they need to critically consider factors such as resource dependency and management, as well as relationships building among the wineries and the territory. This chapter proposes and discusses an interpretative framework for helping wineries to shape their wine tourism strategy and form their tourism offering that is based on two factors: market positioning (i.e. the market needs and orientation) and the role of territory. To achieve that, the chapter starts by exploring emerging trends and insights in the field of wine tourism, and the importance of strategic planning of wine tourism activity. Practical implications and examples of the framework are also provided.

Wineries differentiate themselves by creating a sense of authenticity. Wineries will do this by engaging in sensemaking to understand their environments and sensegiving to influence consumer perceptions of authenticity. Oftentimes, wineries can identify themselves within a geographic region, which provides benefits like participation in strategic groups. This chapter identifies four differentiation approaches used by wineries to develop authenticity: appellation, tourism, terroir, and storytelling. The benefits of participating in a strategic group allow wineries to collectively craft a sense of regional authenticity by appellation differentiation from other regions, as well as through tourism. However, wineries also need to differentiate within their respective strategic groups by creating authentic differences. Differentiation within a strategic group can be based on the terroir of the winery property to make the wine produced appear more authentic. Storytelling allows wineries to shape narratives about wines and wineries to create an authenticity unique to the winery. There are thus beneficial approaches to developing authenticity for a winery both within and between strategic groups.

Wine tourism experiences are about intense sensorial, aesthetic, cognitive, and nowadays most importantly transformative experiences. Research in agri-food and management science currently highlights the need to engage in social and transformative innovation in order to augment wine (tourism) offerings. Despite these theoretical arguments, studies have failed to explain how to design transformational wine tourism experiences. This chapter adopts a multi-disciplinary approach and uses the case of Ariousios wine in order to show how the combination of wine and culture can be used for implementing social/transformative innovation and for designing transformative wine tourism experiences. The case study also demonstrates the use of story-telling for communicating and framing the business concept, philosophy and strategy of Ariousios wine as well as for inspiring wine consumers/tourists to emotionally, cognitively, spiritually and behaviourally engage with the wine tourism offering and the cultural values that it represents and symbolises.

Despite the boom of research on wine tourism experiences, most of the studies focus on creating typologies of experiences (mainly based on the 4Es framework) neglecting to explain how and why customers get engaged with wine tourism activities and how one can trigger and motivate customer engagement to achieve positive customer value outcomes. This chapter explains how the combination of art, cultural heritage and wine can be used for designing engaging and meaningful wine tourism experiences that can contribute to the personal development and transformation of wine tourists. To achieve this, the chapter adopts a cultural ecosystems and landscape approach for conceptualizing winescapes and understanding their role and impact on wine tourism experiences. A case study based on the Scarecrow art exhibition taking place at Domaine Sigalas is used for showing the applicability and implications of the theoretical arguments. The case study shows how the use of art within a cultural winescape context can stimulate and nurture multi-dimensional wine tourism experiences that can in turn result in transformational and developmental customer benefits.

This chapter examines innovation as an essential factor for economic competitiveness and success for wine tourism-related enterprises. Wine tourism is a fast-growing niche market worldwide, so there is a great need to better understand how innovation could assist such tourism enterprises. The chapter examines the case of the pioneering Britzikis winery, which adapts innovation in many aspects of its operation, and managed to turn a catastrophic event, such as the 2007 great fires in Peloponnese, into a unique business opportunity with the creation of new innovative products, such as the collectable wine “Dia Pyros”, recently auctioned in New York for $750 USD per bottle. We examine how the new products itself, as well as the variety of other innovative products, services, and initiatives assist the winery to further develop food & wine tourism. We make comparisons in order to estimate the positive impact of innovation in the wine tourism-related businesses. The chapter concludes by providing specific policy suggestions aiming to promote wine tourism development and identify future research opportunities.

This case study describes and evaluates the development and broadly shared benefits of a partnership between a university and an emerging wine region and its wine education institute. It demonstrates that, with both vision and a view to extracting maximum value from a partnership, the affordances can multiply beyond the obvious and intended initial beneficiaries—the students for whom the programme was designed. The catalytic value of wine is therefore highlighted.

This case provides an in-depth look at a winery located at a monastery. Background information is provided to identify approaches for the winery to differentiate itself and to create a sense of authenticity. The decisions for the winery are how to differentiate itself by working within a strategic group and what aspect of the winery should be used to craft authenticity. The purpose of the case is to understand the different ways wineries can gain a competitive advantage.