Stephen Charters

Who is the wine tourist

Abstract Both the wine and tourism industries have achieved high levels of growth within Australia in the 1990s, and are significant contributors to the GDP as invisible exports. In 1994, about 10 percent of the total international visitors made a visit to an Australian winery, an increase of 20 percent on the 1993 figures. Some researchers seek to explore wine tourism as a form of consumer behaviour in which wine lovers and those interested in wine regions travel to preferred destinations. Key researchers, in this emerging field of wine tourism, have commented on the lack of published research material available regarding the behaviour and characteristics of the winery visitor or the tourist. This paper addresses these issues by suggesting a model possessing three dimensions; purpose of visit, general tourist motivation and relationship to other tourist activities. With this model, it is possible to locate specific tourist activities, and thereby have a better understanding of what constitutes ‘wine tourism’. It also considers whether or not specific cultural and geographic differences may have an impact on the segmentation of the wine tourist.

Product Involvement and the Evaluation of Wine Quality

Purpose – The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between wine drinkers product involvement and their engagement with wine quality. It examined particularly how they conceptualise quality, how they evaluate it, and the dimensions of quality they focus on.Design/methodology/approach – The study used focus groups (including wine tasting as a stimulus) and individual interviews to elicit data. Wine drinkers across Australia were informants for the study.Findings – There appears to be a relationship between involvement level and how wine quality is perceived. Higher‐involvement drinkers seemed more inclined to conceptualise wine quality as objective whereas lower‐involvement consumers tended to see it as subjective. Lower‐involvement informants often focused more on sensory dimensions of wine quality (like flavour or smoothness), while high‐involvement drinkers used more cognitive dimensions such as interest or complexity. Further, there appears to be evidence for a group of medium‐involvem...

Consumers' expectations of food and alcohol pairing

Purpose – Food and alcohol are symbolically and physically linked in many cultures. This article seeks to explore Australians perceptions of the relationships between food and two of the more popular forms of alcohol – wine and beer.Design/methodology/approach – The findings from two parallel alcohol studies are reported. One study examined the role of wine consumption in Australian culture (n=105), while the other study performed the same function in terms of beer consumption (n=115). Interviews and focus groups were used in both studies to collect data from consumers and industry representatives to identify expectations of appropriate food and alcohol pairing.Findings – Wine was found to be strongly associated with food along three dimensions: complementarity, social meaning, and lubrication. This association occurs in the context that it is generally deemed inappropriate to consume wine without food. By comparison, a much weaker association appears to exist between food and beer. Interviewees reported...

Why Do People Drink Wine? A Consumer-Focused Exploration

ABSTRACT There is an increasing interest in the consumption and social meaning of food and drinks in the discipline of marketing. This article reports the findings of an exploratory research study into the motivational factors which inform the reasons why people drink wine. A qualitative research process was used to explore these factors to understand better the motivational aspect of Australian consumers relationship with wine. The findings cover both symbolic and experiential purposes. Enjoyment, situational factors, personal historical context, and lifestyle-related issues appeared to be crucial. Additionally, cognitive dimensions, aesthetics, and memory-related factors are also significant although previously these have been less noted by researchers.

Conceptualizing product quality: the case of wine:

This study investigated wine drinkers perspectives on how product quality is conceptualized. The research was carried out because the dominant paradigm for quality within the marketing literature is perceived quality, and as such it is important to understand how consumers construct frameworks to understand quality and specifically whether they share this perception of the particular importance of the notion of perceived quality. Qualitative processes were used to obtain data from 60 informants. The findings indicate that consumers can adopt subjective or objective frameworks, with some also leaning towards relative and absolute quality positions. These conflicting frameworks are resolved by using an interactionist perspective, which allows quality to mediate the varying quality correlates noted in the marketing literature.

Tasting as a projective technique

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits of tasting as a projective technique (PT) in explicating consumers thoughts and feelings towards food and beverage products.Design/methodology/approach – In total, ten focus groups were conducted with 35 consumers, 14 wine producers, and 13 mediators. The mediator category included those involved in marketing, wholesaling, retailing, and judging wine. Participants in each focus group were given the same four wines to taste. Initially they were invited to discuss their views on wine quality. The participants were then presented with the wines and asked to discuss their responses to them, particularly their perceptions of the quality of the wines.Findings – The primary findings related to: the changes in apparent certainty levels amongst professionals and high‐involvement informants; exposure of real and contradictory preferences; role of cognitive, affective, and sensory responses to wine; and interpretation of the language of tasting.Rese...

An Exploration of Managerial Expertise in the Western Australian Wine Industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the key management skills for running a successful winery business, which in the Australian industry is predominately a small to medium sized business, and explores the existence of such skills within the industry.Design/methodology/approach – The information was obtained through structured interviews with a range of winery owners and managers in the four main wine regions of Western Australia.Findings – Whilst a set of universal management skills are identified by the industry participants, these are not universally held. The study examines skills and training issues highlighting the diversity of winery owners and managers.Research limitations/implications – The study was conducted using qualitative methodology in one state of Australia only.Practical implications – The findings require further quantitative testing, but strongly imply that managerial skills in the wine industry are limited, and most managers are more focused on technical expertise than f...

Value in the territorial brand: the case of champagne

Purpose – The aim of this study is to consider how key actors in a territorial brand view the creation of value, and how it is balanced between the territorial and individual brands – using champagne as a means of exploring this. Design/methodology/approach – The project was exploratory and a qualitative process involving interviews with key actors in the region was adopted. Findings – Members of the champagne industry adopt a range of views about the nature of value, focusing on image, reputation and perceived quality, but varying between an individualist approach (which considers that value creation lies with the proprietary brands) and a more collectivist perspective, which considers it is predominantly the result of the territorial brand. Research limitations/implications – Research into the organisation of territorial brands is just beginning; while merely exploratory this research suggests that issues around value merit further consideration. Practical implications – Actors within a territorial bran...

Champagne purchasing: the influence of kudos and sentimentality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the engagement of Australian consumers when buying and drinking Champagne.Design/methodology/approach – The paper identified seven variables a priori that were expected to influence consumers decisions and then used exploratory interviews to investigate how Champagne consumers were influenced by these. The authors interviewed Champagne marketers, sellers, educators, connoisseurs and aspirational consumers. The interview protocol allowed respondents to identify other variables.Findings – The paper identified two new variables that, inter alia, influence Australian consumers in their Champagne selection. These were the kudos that comes from the people they serve or give it to and their sentimentality about previous experiences of Champagne consumption. The two new variables are the focus of this paper.Research limitations/implications – The exploratory nature of this research means larger studies are needed to confirm the preliminary findings, particula...