The Growing Economic and Cultural Impact of Wine Tourism

2.17.12

The Growing Economic and Cultural Impact of Wine Tourism

I. Introduction

! Wine tourism, as defined by C. Michael Hall, is the “visitation to vineyards, wineries, wine festivals and wine shows for which grape wine tasting and/or experiencing the attributes of a grape wine region are the prime motivating factors for visitors (Getz, Brown, 2006).” Over the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the popularity of wine tasting and wine culture. As a result, wine tourism has grown immensely as a substantial form of income through rural (Telfer, 2001) and New World (Hall, Mitchell, 2000) tourism development. Most wine tourism follows wine routes: a tourist path of multiple wineries and estates in an area, usually along a known, aesthetically pleasing path of vineyards and other physical attractions (Bruwer, 2003). The added allure of festivals, customer services, geographical factors and tour operations centralized around these wineries and wine routes make for great possible economic gains, if the market is executed correctly.

II. Bibliography

1. David J. Telfer

! 2001! “Strategic Alliances Along the Niagra Wine Route.” Tourism Management 22: 21-30.

The impact of technology over the last 50 years gave a way to New World wine regions and an opportunity to expand on wine tourism. However, tourism management must create links and collaborate within the economy for these wineries to be effective and successful. Telfer states that by making horizontal and vertical links in the economy by establishing ties with not only tour operations and similar businesses, but with other wineries within the area as well, wineries can achieve astounding growths. Wineries need to establish connections amongst themselves to create wine routes and attract tourism. Although the wineries are the main reason for the visitations, wineries will be more successful if they pair with other successful tour operations such as fine dining, hot air balloons, music festivals, helicopter rides, car shows, comedy tours, golfing and shopping sprees.

2. Donald Getz, and Graham Brown

! 2006! “Critical success factors for wine tourism regions: a demand analysis.” Tourism Management 27: 146-158.

The main focus of Getz and Brown was to evaluate and determine the relationship of traveling distance among wine consumers who don’t live near wine regions. Their experiment was focused around 161 wine tourists from Calgary, Canada, who were absent from wine regions and still travelled across the world for wine tastings and

festivals. Studies showed that distance was not a large factor, and that wine research was done at the cellar door, not at home. The