Wine and Tourism: A Good Blend Goes a Long Way

Abstract

Wine and tourism are seen as good bedfellows, and rightly so. Globally the wine industry is increasingly dependent on leisure and tourist visitors to sustain the growth of local and export sales, both in terms of immediate turnover from "cellar door" transactions and as a long-term image generating mechanism (Lockshin, 2001). Growing interest, both applied and academic, in wine tourism as an industry is indicative of the fact both practitioners and researchers consider it an important contributor to continued success for wine producers (Bruwer & Lesschaeve, 2012). However, only a relatively small percentage of the total international visitors to a country actually visit a winery when on holiday (Department of Industry Tourism and Resources, 2009).