THE THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR IN THE CONTEXT OF WINE FESTIVAL ATTENDEES

This study seeks to contribute to the literature on event tourism through the lens of the Theory of planned behavior. In doing so, the study seeks to address various knowledge gaps in wine festival research, namely with regard to the wine festival attendees’ behavior and motivation. Another knowledge gap identified in the present study related to the limited use of the TPB in the context of food and wine events, with Horng et al. (2013) being among the few researchers contributing to this area in recent time. The present study’s main objective is to apply an extended model of the TPB to investigate the travelers’ behavior formation process in attending a wine festival. Various positive outcomes could be achieved from this study. First, the findings related to attendee’ motivations to attend the wine festival, could provide valuable practical information to event organizers and managers. This information might subsequently help them develop strategies to address attendees’ needs & wants. In particular, the identification of specific segments with higher involvement in wine festival visitation and patronage and stronger desire to invest financially, in terms of time or travel mileage could be very valuable to organizers, and ultimately, to attendees. Second, from the theoretical perspective, the adoption of the TPB could help identify factors relevant to attendees’ wine festival experience, and thus contribute to the further development of the theory. Finally, the study will examine predictive capacity of intention on actual behavior