Wine tourism experiences in New Zealand: an exploratory study

Recently, New Zealand's wine industry has made remarkable progress. For example, the number of hectares planted in grapes increased from 4,880 in 1990, to 15,479 in 2003, and the number of wineries increased from 175 in 1993 to 421 in 2003. Projections for 2006 indicate that the growth of wine exports should nearly double from 2003, with expected revenues of $NZ 736 million. However, despite this growth, little has been reported about developments in New Zealand's wine tourism industry, or about consumer perceptions of the winery experience in the form of published academic research. The limited amount of information, particularly from the visitors' points of view, may not only be preventing winery operators and the wine industry in general from having a better understanding of their visitors, but also from addressing the needs of different visitor segments. Resulting implications for winery operators may include forgone business opportunities, and customers not fully benefiting in terms of product and service quality. Recent studies indicate that this last element is particularly important in wine tourism. This study reports the results of an exploratory research project conducted in New Zealand wineries that investigated aspects of the winery experience, including wine involvement, satisfaction with the winery experience, and visitor demographics. An index to measure involvement with wine, the wine involvement index (WIX), was developed and utilised to investigate whether wine involvement had an impact on winery visitors' behaviour. Data were collected from winery visitors via questionnaires distributed in a sample of wineries in different wine regions of New Zealand. A total of 609 usable responses were obtained (24.8% response rate). The results indicate a number of differences between the independent, dependent, and moderating variables. For example, it was found that age, whether visitors are domestic or international, and different levels of wine involvement appear to have a clear impact on winery expenditure. In addition, the WIX was confirmed to be a useful tool, for example, by identifying potential relationships between different groups of winery visitors. The results add new knowledge to the area of wine tourism, and offer useful information for wineries and the wine tourism industry. This information includes the potential commercial significance of some visitor groups. An additional contribution of this study is the 'complete wine tourism research model.' This concept presents an alternative to existing wine tourism models, and points out attributes and dimensions that play a major role in the winery experience