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Tourism and hospitality scholars have examined tourists' food experiences in the tourism context. However, little research has been focused on the experience of tasting slow food/wine and the market that consumes slow food/wine. This study aims to (1) understand the factors contributing to tourists' slow food experiences and (2) identify the market segmentation of tourists who experiences slow food and wine at a winery. Four hundred fifty-three online survey questionnaires were collected from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform. The critical research variable is slow food experience, which contains 16 items explained by four dimensions: (1) food, (2) place, (3) behavior, and (4) knowledge. Subsequently, a cluster analysis based on slow food experience measurement was adopted to discover the tourist market. The study identifies three markets: (1) hardcore slow food gastronomes, (2) common slow foodies, and (3) casual visitors. In the conclusion section, this study offers theoretical contributions to the slow food literature and managerial implications for tourism marketers to establish new marketing strategies.

In every industry there are resources. Some are moving, others more fixed; some are technical, others social. People working with the resources, for example, as buyers or sellers, or users or producers, may not make much notice of them. A product sells. A facility functions. The business relationship in which we make our money has “always” been there. However, some times this picture of order is disturbed. A user having purchased a product for decades may “suddenly” say to the producer that s/he does not appreciate the product. And a producer having received an order of a product that s/he thought was well known, may find it impossible to sell it. Such disturbances may be ignored. Or they can be used as a platform for development. In this study we investigate the latter option, theoretically and through real world data. Concerning theory we draw on the industrial network approach. We see industrial actors as part of (industrial) networks. In their activities actors use and produce resources. Moreover, the actors interact − bilaterally and multilaterally. This leads to development of resources and networks. Through “thick” descriptions of two cases we illustrate and try to understand the interactive character of resource development and how actors do business on features of resources. The cases are about a certain type of resource, a product − goat milk. The main message to industrial actors is that they should pay attention to that products can be co-created. Successful co-creation of products, moreover, may require development also of business relationships and their connections (“networking”).

The objective of this research is to explore the relationship between brand experience and customer equity (value equity, brand equity, and relationship equity). We examine the impacts of different contact points’ experiences (media contact, physical environment contact, people contact, and product usage contact) and different dimensions of brand experience on customer equity. Further we investigate the possible moderating effects of different brand positioning and strategies – hedonic and utilitarian, on this relationship. The data which are collected via online survey includes 410 observations with brand experience and 83 without brand experience, 493 valid samples in total. We found that positive and strong brand experience is the key factor for building strong customer equity. Although the impacts of all four contact points’ brand experiences are significant, product usage contact has the most powerful influence on customer equity and its individual drivers. The results also indicate that the different brand positioning strategies do have moderating effects. For utilitarian brand, only brand experience at product usage contact point has significant impact on customer equity and its three drivers. For hedonic brand, all four contact points’ experiences have significant relationships with customer equity. Finally, the four experience dimensions (sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral) have different impacts on customer equity and its three drivers at different experience contact points.

Purpose: This paper uses performance theory to explore how wine-tourism experiences are orchestrated by wine tour guides to encourage engagement of consumers. It describes how such orchestration is built on material elements such as landscapes, architecture, vineyards, production facilities, and wine tastings.

Design/methodology/approach: A multi-layer ethnographic research on wine-tourism was employed. The interviews, observations, and field notes were analyzed through the lens of performance theory. A constant comparative method was used to identify emergent patterns, and a hermeneutic method was used to interpret the data.

Findings: The paper builds on performance theory and delineates the ways in which guides co-create intense experiences with participants. It portrays how tour guides often adjust their theatrical scripts to consumers’ unique needs through creative variations: surprise treats, activities, and personal stories. When guides take pleasure in tours, participants do as well, resulting in memorable co-created experiences. The tours feature processes such as pitching and relation-building techniques that call upon identity, morality, and materiality scripts, which ultimately build a sense of social obligation among participants toward tour guides and winery staff.

Originality/value: From a theoretical perspective, the paper adds value to the discussion of performance in tourism by suggesting that the service blueprint, architecture, and employee training are only part of the story. This paper shows how consumer engagement and interactions between participants, guides, architecture, and landscapes are essential elements of memorable experiences.

Research limitations: Like other studies, there are limitations to our study as well. Our study only included one-day wine tours. A broader investigation of strategic alliances between tour companies and wineries, and how wine tourists experience and sustain a sense of social obligations to the wineries they visit, will provide further insights into how wine-tourism functions as a co-creative emergent form of consumption involving individuals, products, and processes.

In a fragmented tourism market and highly competitive industry, tourism providers aim to increase their appeal and attractiveness. Identifying opportunities and resources, which contribute to provide consumers with higher quality experiences and create added value, is challenging for entrepreneurs. This chapter aims to increase the awareness of entrepreneurs about flexible methods and tools, which are transforming the way work is performed and thus affecting management practices in the tourism industry.

Literature review was conducted on conceptual issues related to consumer experience and three case studies were analysed as best practices in the wine tourism industry

To deliver a specific consumer experience and create added value for customers, several opportunities are identified, related to authenticity and accommodation offering. Necessary resources to exploit those opportunities encompass existing (connected to the main product wine, historical buildings, family story and product characteristics) as well as newly acquired valuable resources related to the development of peripheral tourism activities.

This study is explorative in nature, based on a literature review. It takes more entrepreneurial than academic approach.

The balance between authenticity and attractiveness is a key factor of success for wineries as means to provide added value to customers.

This contribution helps to identify valuable and existing resources in order to exploit opportunities and deliver high-quality experiences to tourists. The uniqueness of this experience is crucial on building added value for customers.

This chapter explores how quality is assessed in craft beer through describing tastes and aromas in relationship to categories of beer style. Drawing on documentary sources, it explores the development and formalisation of definitions of beer styles, and the development of the contemporary language used to describe and assess taste. It then ethnographically explores how these are combined in the practice of craft beer judging at a competition through a novel assemblage of different methods. The empirical work contributes novel methods for exploring tasting practices, detailed ethnographic description of beer judging and an exploration of how the organisation of style guides and taste descriptions have contributed to defining and assessing quality in craft beer.

This chapter addresses the emerging trends in Australia’s food destinations and analyzes different demands for this experience from a Korean tourism market perspective. Tourism Australia’s report on the international market research was analyzed, and the findings indicate that four main food experiences were sought by Koreans. A sense of landscapes plays an important role in enhancing their local food experiences. Multicultural food, health conscious markets, and food shopping are also crucial for developing Australia’s competitive advantage in this area. This chapter suggests marketing implications and directions for future research to explore cross-cultural gaps in food culture and behaviors from the perspectives of Asian tourism markets.

Along with the changing needs and expectations of tourists, their demands for special interest tourism types have also increased. In this context, tea tourism is accepted as one of the notable tourism types in recent years. For this reason, it is important to examine the behavior of tourists participating in tea tourism and to provide services accordingly. However, studies on the experiences of tourists participating in tea tourism are still insufficient. The purpose of this study is to determine the memorable experience components of tourists participating in tea tourism. In this context, data were collected using semistructured interviews, participant observation, and online tourist comments. According to the findings, the memorable experience components of tourists participating in tea tourism activities are divided into four themes. These themes are: information about tea, tea-related environments, the taste of tea, and interaction. At the conclusion part of the study, some suggestions were made to the marketers, managers, and operators related to tea tourism according to the determined themes.

Purpose: This paper adopts a practice-oriented approach to address gaps in existing knowledge of the significance of cultural producers’ and intermediaries’ practices of taste for the construction and organization of markets. Using the example of the cultural field of “natural” wine, I propose how taste operates as a logic of practice, generating market actions in relation to the aesthetic regime of provenance.

Methodology/approach: The paper sets out the conceptual relationship between aesthetic regimes and practices of taste. The discussion draws from interpretive research on natural wine producers and cultural intermediaries involving 40 interviews with natural wine makers, retailers, sommeliers, and writers based in New York, Western Australia, the Champagne region, and the Cape Winelands.

Findings: Three dimensions of how taste is translated into action are examined: as a device of division, which establishes a fuzzy logic of resemblance; as a device of operation, which provides an intuitive platform for shaping the means of production; and as a device of coordination, which enables an embedded experience of trust.

Originality/value: The paper’s discussion of dispositions, affect, intuition, and pattern identification provide new insights into the translation of taste into action, and the macro-organization of markets. I argue for attention to how cultural producers and cultural intermediaries are mobilized through their habitual sense of taste, shifting the focus away from consumers to those whose market actions are largely self- and peer-referential. This is important for understanding processes of market development and value construction.

This study examines the relationship between food experience, emotion, place attachment, and tourists' revisit behavioral intention. A survey questionnaire is conducted on-site in Lukang and distributed to 408 tourists. The dimensions of food experience are established through factor analysis, and a hypothesized model of the relationships between the constructs is tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicate that tourists' food experiences included local flavor, media recommendation, local learning, life transfer, and interpersonal sharing. In addition, food experience has a significant impact on emotion and place attachment, and emotion has a substantial effect on place attachment. Finally, place attachment significantly impacts tourists' revisit behavioral intention. The study makes a significant theoretical contribution by identifying food experience, emotion, and place attachment as the salient predictors of heritage tourists' revisit intention. Furthermore, the study suggests that food experiences enhance effective bonding at tourism destinations.