Lifestyle Market Segmentation,Small Business Entrepreneurs,and the New Zealand Wine Tourism Industry

ABSTRACT

Wine tourism is an important niche activity for which participant needs and motivations have been somewhat under-researched. This paper describes a case study investigation to evaluate the nature of buyer/seller relationships that evolve in a wine tourism setting. Visitors to three small New Zealand wineries were interviewed to gather data relating to their lifestyle behaviors and their attitudes towards the wine tourism experience, and factor analysis used to categorize these visitors in terms of the List of Values typology of lifestyle characteristics. Results indicate that the 'achiever' and 'funlover' segments are well represented amongst winery visitors, but that there is an appreciably lower incidence of 'belonger' personalities. Implications of these findings for the wine tourism industry are considered.     

Sensation seeking and the prediction of attitudes and behaviours of wine tourists

Although socio-economic variables are commonly used for market segmentation and are widely applied in describing winery visitors, increasing awareness is evident in the literature that personality might also be useful for that purpose. The present study examined whether, compared with socio-economic variables (age, gender, education level, personal income, and household income), the personality variable sensation seeking adds to the ability to predict differences in various attitudes and behaviours of wine tourists. With the effects of the former controlled, sensation seeking was observed to be significantly related to spending on wine, and wine drinking, as well as to the frequency of visits to wineries and the number of activities engaged in at wineries, the use of the internet as a source of information about wineries, venturing off the beaten track during a visit to a wine region, and the strength of opportunity for learning, stimulation, or indulgence as incentives to visit a wine region. Sensation seeking was also observed to be significantly related to all but one of those variables when the effects of another variable which is receiving increasing attention as a means by which to characterize wine tourists, “involvement”, were controlled. The practical significance of the results for winery and wine region marketing and management is discussed, and several requirements for further research are identified.     

Wine tourism: Motivating visitors through core and supplementary services

Wine tourism is a relatively fledgling industry sector facing a number of important economic development issues. One such issue is the industry's ability to foster a sustainable revenue base for small and medium wineries. Winery visitation is a significant concern and in this paper is defined as the visitor's intention to pay a first or return visit to a winery. The purpose of this exploratory study is to compare specific factors that may influence wine tourists' intentions to visit or revisit a winery or wine region in North Carolina. A theoretical model of core and supplementary services is examined to see which of a number of factors are most influential in decisions to visit a winery and to determine the role of winescape and tourism services in promoting wine tourism. The importance of customer service was found to be the primary predictor of intentions for repeat visitation.     

Social media marketing in wine tourism: winery owners’ perceptions

This paper examines winery owners’ attitudes and perceptions regarding the use of social media in marketing and promoting wine tourism online. Empirical evidence is provided by a sample of 20 winery owners in the North Italian region of Langhe, who have engaged to a greater or lesser extent in social media. The findings show that while the majority of winery owners recognise the social, economic and emotional benefits of social media, they are far from exploiting its full potential, partially due to barriers such as their agricultural mentality and the time-consuming nature of social media.     

Differences in Tourism Marketing Strategies Between Wineries Based on Size or Location

While the number of United States wineries has doubled and wine production tripled, only three states represent the majority of wineries and wine production. Yet, small wineries must contend with similar production issues that larger wineries face: cultivation of grapes, fermentation of juice, and finally bottling of the product.By comparison small wineries face an even tougher challenge—attracting consumers' attention to their products, much of which must be sold directly to consumers at the winery. These cellar door sales account for substantial dollar and case volume and are particularly lucrative.This study examined the relationship in off‐site and on‐site marketing strategies based upon winery size and location. The results indicated differences in tourism marketing strategies particularly with wine education at rural wineries and food/wine pairing techniques at larger wineries.     

Wine tourism involvement: a segmentation of Chinese tourists

ABSTRACT

This study profiles the Chinese wine tourist market based on levels of consumer involvement. Using a sample of 503 Chinese wine tourists visiting Australian wineries, the study identified four dimensions of involvement in wine tourism among Chinese tourists: Interests and Importance, Risk Importance and Possibility, Risk Avoidance, and Status Value. Based on the various levels of involvement, four clusters of Chinese wine tourists were identified: low-involvement wine tourists, highly involved wine tourists, interest-driven wine tourists, and high-risk perception wine tourists. For the group size, high-risk perception wine tourists included the highest number of people in the sample, while a relatively small number of people belonged to the interest-driven group. Significant differences were found for behavioral variables and activity participation level across the four clusters, but similarity outweighed the differences among demographic and socio-economic variables. The research proceeded to theoretical and marketing implications.     

Why do They Come Back? The Effects of Winery Tourists’ Motivations and Satisfaction on the Number of Visits and Revisit Intentions

ABSTRACT

Few studies have examined the influence of winery tourists’ motivations and satisfaction on number of visits and revisit intentions. This study examined these relationships through 1602 online survey responses from former winery visitors. The data were analyzed through a series of multiple regression analyses. Findings show that among tourists’ motivations, the reputation, reviews, and perceived quality of the winery and its wines significantly affect the number of visits and revisit intentions, while media exposure affects revisit intentions. Further, visitors’ satisfaction with the winery significantly impacts revisit intentions. While visitors’ geographic proximity to the winery increased the number of visits, as expected, distance from the winery is shown to increase revisit intentions. Finally, the number of previous visits had a significant positive effect on revisit intentions.     

Experiential Marketing and Long-Term Sales

This study investigates the ability of winery tasting rooms to create brand awareness and build long-term brand loyalty. Specifically, we test the conjecture that if tasting rooms create brand awareness and a pleasurable tasting room experience, then those visitors are more likely to recognize and seek out those brands once they leave the tasting room. To measure these effects, we exploit differences in tasting room characteristics to conduct a series of natural experiments from which we analyze differences in off-premise retail sales away from the tasting room. We use scan data on wine sold off-premise through traditional retail outlets to then test for differences among tasting room characteristics. Our results indicate that tasting rooms act as a form of experiential marketing for wineries, creating brand awareness and generating greater growth in off-premise retail sales. Finally, we address issues of endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity as potential sources of bias.     

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE WINE TASTING: THE EFFECT OF A TASTING FEE ON OBLIGATION TO BUY

Building on reciprocity theory, the current study suggests that, at least to some extent, consumers purchase goods and services in response to sampling due to a perceived need to reciprocate for trying the products/services. In addition, the study explores the effect of charging for sampling (i.e., wine tasting) on tourist behavior. The sample (N = 357) was drawn from visitors to six wineries in an emerging wine region. Three of the sampled wineries charged a small fee for tasting, while the other three wineries offered complimentary wine tasting. The study examined whether differences exist in a perceived need to buy wine between visitors who paid a tasting fee and those who tasted wine for free. The results indicated that visitors who had complimentary wine tasting spent significantly more money at the wineries than visitors who paid a fee for tasting. Furthermore, visitors who tasted wine for free felt significantly more appreciative of the personnel than did visitors who paid a tasting fee. Also, visitors who had complimentary wine tasting reported significantly higher levels of obligation to make a purchase at the end of their visits to the wineries. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Wine Tourism,Environmental Concerns,and Purchase Intention

Sustainable development and marketing are applied across the tourism spectrum, yet a need exists to make them relevant to specific forms of tourism, such as wine tourism. In this consumer-driven economy, tourism marketers often seek effective ways to market destinations. This study attempts to identify the environmental wine tourist by examining environmental personality characteristics and certain demographics on purchase intention, thus making it possible to better understand their concerns and motivations, which should aid marketing and advertising efforts. The results suggest wine tourists may be willing to pay for environmentally friendly wines with females possessing stronger environmental attitudes about protecting wine region destinations, thus influencing stronger behaviors toward purchase intention.     

Predicting Wine Tourism Intention: Destination Image and Self-congruity

Using the context of wine tourism, this study tests an integrated structural model of destination factors and self-congruity to predict behavioral intentions. A survey of 696 respondents throughout Australia showed that functional destination image, affective destination image, and self-congruity predict attitude toward wine tourism, which in turn predicts behavioral intentions. The moderating influence of wine involvement was also tested through multigroup and latent mean analysis. Consumers who were highly involved with wine appeared to be more influenced by affective destination image and self-congruity than those who indicated low wine involvement.     

Visitors' Motivation for Attending the South Beach Wine and Food Festival,Miami Beach,Florida

The objective of this study was to identify the major factors that motivated visitors to attend the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami Beach, Florida, and determine whether these factors varied among the visitors from the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, and Asia. A survey of 475 visitors to South Florida was conducted in February 2006. Forty‐four motivational items were factor analyzed. The seven factors that motivated first‐time visitors to the festival were the desire to taste new wine and food, enjoy the event, enhance social status, escape from routine life, meet new people, spend time with family, and get to know the celebrity chefs and wine experts. A significant difference in motivation among the five national groups of visitors was found in the area of family influence. Implications of the study results are discussed.     

Wine: Intrinsic attributes and consumers’ drinking frequency,experience, and involvement

This study developed and tested a model that links the perceived importance of sensory attributes of wine with drinking frequency and experience, and in turn links all these factors with product involvement as the central framework. Results from 493 survey responses collected in the North-western U.S. region employing path analysis and moderated regression analysis revealed that consumer drinking frequency significantly and positively influenced wine involvement while years of drinking moderated this relationship. Furthermore, involvement significantly and positively influenced the perceived importance of wine appearance and bouquet—but not wine taste. As such, highly involved consumers were more interested in ancillary product attributes, which in this case entailed appearance and bouquet. Moreover, the survey results suggest that consumers perceived the importance of intrinsic wine attributes in the same way as they would evaluate the attributes in formal wine-tasting events. Specifically, the perceived importance of appearance of wine significantly influenced perceived importance of bouquet and taste, and perceived importance of bouquet influenced perceived importance of taste.     

Understanding the Impact of Ecotourism Resort Experiences on Tourists’ Environmental Attitudes and Behavioural Intentions

This study explored the conservation benefits of environmental management practices and nature experiences provided at a major Australian ecotourism resort. To achieve this purpose the study investigated changes in tourists’ environmental knowledge, awareness, attitudes and behavioural intentions between pre-visit and post-visit stages. Overall, there were few statistically significant differences between the pre-visit and post-visit samples. This study found, however, significant effects of (1) visitor awareness of, and (2) involvement in, the environmental management practices, and (3) participation in nature tour activities on environmental attitudes and behaviours. It is suggested that awareness of in-resort environmental practices and satisfying experiences in ecotourism accommodation may lead to reinforcing visitors’ favourable environmental attitudes, thus increasing their interest in further ecotourism experiences. Through these cumulative effects, ecotourism accommodation could achieve its educative goal.     

Beyond Better Wine: The Impact of Experiential and Monetary Value on Wine Tourists’ Loyalty Intentions

Research on the experiential aspects of wine tourism has been advocated but the evolution of this approach in this field is still in its infancy. This exploratory study proposes a behavioral model to simultaneously examine the role of hedonic and utilitarian shopping value as well as monetary value perceptions in predicting cellar door visitors’ overall satisfaction and loyalty intentions. The application of partial least squares path modeling indicates that cellar door visitors are oriented toward the experiential aspects of the visit itself as much as to pragmatic considerations in purchasing wine. The insights are, therefore, directed toward the creation of a total cellar door experience. These findings contribute to the understanding of a cellar door visitors’ decision-making process, providing managers and researchers with insights into how to effectively accommodate cellar door visitors’ needs.     

Wine Tourists’ Destination Region Brand Image Perception and Antecedents: Conceptualization of a Winescape Framework

This study conceptualizes the winescape framework using a wine region's image as perceived by wine tourists, in the process integrating grounded theory, namely servicescape, destination choice, and place-based marketing theories. Using an a priori approach, it identifies the winescape construct in a framework of eight dimensions within the wine tourism environment in a study with 996 respondents in a well-known Canadian wine region. The most important dimension of the winescape is the region's natural beauty/setting (landscape). Other high impact characteristics are the service staff and friendly local people, overall ambience and the diversity of wine estates. The dynamic of first-time and repeat visitation plays a key role in visitors’ wine tourism behavior and their perception of the winescape. The decision to engage in wine tourism is generally impulsive, even spurious, and the motivations guiding the visitors’ behavior predominantly hedonic in nature.     

Virtual wine tours and wine tasting: The influence of offline and online embodiment integration on wine purchase decisions

Applying the theory of embodied cognition as the research framework, the purpose of the current study was to explore the influence of virtual wine tours on young consumers' wine sensory experience and purchasing behaviors. A lab tasting experiment was conducted to compare the influence of a VR video with that of a traditional video featuring a vineyard and winery tour. Results indicated that the VR wine tour video evoked higher intentions to purchase and willingness to pay than the traditional video. Consumers with higher levels of wine knowledge appreciated the video presence and the tastes/aromas of the wine more than consumers with lower levels of wine knowledge. Combined with the taste/finish of the wine, video presence mediated the relationships between video types and consumers' purchase behaviors, revealing that the integration of offline and online embodiments makes a difference in consumers’ purchasing decisions. Recommendations were then provided based on these results.     

The potential for marrying local gastronomy and wine: The case of the ‘fortunate islands’

For centuries, the Mediterranean and other regions have become icons for their food, wine, laid-back lifestyle and benign weather, with each of these components ideally complementing the other three. The availability of a local cuisine and local wines provides consumers with memorable experiences. However, in many other regions little is known about ways in which the local cuisine and wine could be ‘married.’ This study examines the views of 55 small winery operators in a region that for decades has been widely known as a mass tourism destination: the Canary Island in Spain. While most operators recognise the potential for a perfect local cuisine–wine marriage, many also mention the missing link between the local hospitality and wine sectors. For instance, respondents argue that restaurateurs are not promoting local wines enough in favour of cheaper imports. The study also discusses the implications of the findings and identifies areas of future research.     

An Extended Neural Network-Based Importance-Performance Analysis for Enhancing Wine Fair Experience

This article presents the results of a study conducted at the Dalmacija Wine Expo, a regional wine fair that was held for the first time in 2010 in Makarska, Croatia. To identify critical attributes impacting the experience of fair participants, two separate surveys were conducted among visitors and exhibitors. In analyzing the data, this study used an extended neural network-based importance-performance analysis (IPA) that combines measures of both the relevance (i.e., stated importance/general importance) and determinance (i.e., derived importance/actual influence) of fair attributes. Compared to traditional IPA approaches with uni-dimensional operationalization of attribute-importance, such an approach provided significantly more detailed (and reliable) managerial implications.