David Bernardo López Lluch

Wine tourism product clubs as a way to increase wine added value: the case of Spain

The objective of this paper is to analyze how the wine tourism product clubs work in Spain and their importance for Spanish wine tourism. A tourism product club is a product development partnership established and led by the tourism industry stakeholders including small- and/or medium-sized companies. The group pools its resources to develop new marketready products or to increase the value of existing ones. Lodging companies, tour operators, administrators of tourism facilities, tourist associations, government, other companies of the sector and, even, nontourist companies can participate as members of a tourism product club. Following this model, wine tourism can contribute to create a wine tourism product club. In Spain the international promotion of tourist products is carried out through the Turespana website. The wine tourism product club, The Wine Routes of Spain, is one of the wine tourism product clubs developed by the Spanish government. It is an ambitious project that began in 2001. Nevertheless, other Spanish regions have created more wine tourism product clubs in order to develop their own wine tourism industry such as “Divinum vitae – Where the pleasues are born” created in Castilla–La Mancha in 2006.

Analysis of the opinion about economic and social impacts of golf courses in a tourist destination

The aim of this article is to analyse the opinions (and the differences among them) of golf players, golf courses managers and the general population about the economic and social impact of golf courses in a tourist destination (Alicante province, in Spain) from the data collected in three surveys. Golf players and golf courses managers have a more positive opinion about this economic and social impact than the population in the province. This is due to the knowledge of the first group about golf industry benefits. Therefore, communication about these social and economic benefits of golf courses has to be increased with the population in the area in order to improve their opinion about them.

Corporate and farmer objectives in the wine business: The key to success or failure

This paper analyzes governance and management patterns in agricultural business. Its main objective is to evaluate business success and value creation as a result of good governance and management practices, and the changed paradigm to combine corporate and farmer objectives. We propose a theoretical framework to assess how effective governance and management can help to create value for farmers, and strengthen co-operative principles and the links between corporate and farmer objectives. The model is evaluated and tested through a survey of wine business managers, chairmen, and grape farmers in the province of Alicante in the Valencia region of Spain. According to data from the Regulatory Council, the registered area of Denominacion de Origen in the province Alicante was 14.254 ha in the 2006–2007 harvest (which represented 2.23% of the Spanish total). The 3155 registered grape farmers represented 1.9% of the Spanish total. There were 48 registered companies; 16 of these were not bottling companies. There were 17 registered co-operatives. During the 2005–2006 season, 118,405 hL were marketed (1.20% of the Spanish total). Two thirds went to the national market (1.21% of the Spanish total); the rest was exported (1.18% of the Spanish total).