10. Winery Operators’ Perceptions of Factors Affecting Wine Tourism Development

Wine tourism development requires the willingness of the winery owners to undertake tourism activities when running their business, thus meaning that a shift from a ‘pure product’ orientation to a tourism and hospitality mindset needs to occur. The analysis of the perceptions and attitudes toward wine tourism has gained huge attention in the last few years. However, in Italy very little research has been devoted to this topic adopting a supply-side perspective at a national level. This study was therefore carried out on a sample of 308 Italian wineries to deepen the knowledge about their involvement in wine tourism. Findings reveal that for the most part wineries are SMEs, or even micro, already somewhat involved in wine tourism. However, wineries lever on tourism as a further channel to both distribute and promote their wine production, while the desire to intentionally become a pole of tourism attraction is not so relevant. The marketing and promotional tools they use are mostly traditional, with a relatively low use of social media marketing activities; further, wine producers were reported to keep little data on visitors’ socio-demographic profiles and satisfaction.