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This paper addresses the motivations of tourists who visit the region of La Rioja, Spain, which is well known for its internationally recognized, high-quality wines, yet remains understudied as a wine tourism destination. The paper aims to ascertain whether tourists are attracted to La Rioja because of its famous wines and wine-related activities or if other motivations exist.

The data were derived from 217 questionnaires regarding tourists’ motivations. A tourist survey was applied in La Rioja’s capital city, Logroño, and segmentation analysis was undertaken. The data were first grouped into five factors regarding motivations for one’s visit. These factors were then used to create two clusters: “wine tourists” and “other tourists”.

The results enabled us to detect different segments of tourists. The existence of two clusters suggests that tourists are motivated to visit the region for various reasons that are not necessarily wine-related. Thus, the region should be marketed to tourists beyond the theme of wine, as there is a demand for diverse experiences.

Using the push and pull theory, this study contributes to the literature on the profile of visitors to wine tourism destinations by identifying differences in terms of motivations and other personal characteristics between “wine tourists” and the “other tourists”. It also adds to the few existing studies on wine tourism segmentation in Spain through its focus on La Rioja, which is one of the most famous Spanish wine tourism destinations.

The study aims to introduce a comprehensive segmentation instrument that incorporates the push–pull winescape attributes, providing a new perspective of the wine tourist profile and explaining their behavioural intentions in the Australian winescape.

A literature review, focus groups and expert panels generated an extensive list of push–pull winescape attributes. Pen-and-paper surveys conveniently sampled 739 wine tourists at three wineries across three wine regions in Australia. Adopting push–pull winescape attributes as the segmentation base, cluster analysis identified four segments, namely, inspireds, self-drivens, market-drivens and inerts, and their behavioural intentions were examined.

Inspireds demonstrate both self- and market-motivation. Self-drivens exhibit self-motivation but limited market-motivation, whereas Market-drivens characterise market-motivation but limited self-motivation. Inerts are limited in both market- and self-motivations. At the Swan Valley, all four segments were identified, with Inspireds being the most willing to revisit and recommend to others and Inerts, the least willing. At the Barossa Valley, only two segments emerged. Again, Inspireds and Inerts were the most and least willing to revisit and recommend to others respectively. Finally, at the Yarra Valley, three segments were identified. Market-drivens were most willing to revisit and recommend to others, followed by self-drivens and lastly, by inerts.

A comprehensive push–pull winescape segmentation base of wine tourists is introduced, which provides a more sophisticated profile of wine tourist segments than otherwise would be attained with conventional measures.

New insights into who the wine tourist is and what it is they seek from the winescape are vital to smaller wine producers whose best access to the domestic retail and export markets is through direct selling at the cellar door.

The empirically tested 18-item push–pull winescape instrument presents a comprehensive segmentation approach, which profiles wine tourists and predicts their behavioural intentions based on an extensive investigation of push–pull winescape attributes.

The purpose of this paper is to use the experiential view of consumption to better understand the nature of the motivations of the wine tourist in a congested wine region environment. It also aims to determine the impact of travel antecedents such as the perceived characteristics of the wine region, information sources utilised, and previous knowledge of the region and its products on the destination decision‐making process and ultimately the visitation motivations.

Information is obtained from a random sample of 304 respondents from 12 wineries representing all size groups situated on the Paarl Wine Route (PWR) in South Africa. Data are collected through the use of a self‐administered, highly structured questionnaire, self‐completed by respondents at each of the winery cellar door venues.

The most important characteristic of the entire winescape is the region's scenic beauty. Other high impact characteristics are the friendly people and their hospitality, overall ambience and the diversity of wine estates. These factors point to hedonic behaviour in a highly social context and primarily a search for enjoyment/pleasure, mainly by first‐time visitors. The dynamic of first‐time and repeat visitation plays a key role in visitors' wine tourism behaviour. The decision to engage in wine tourism is generally impulsive, even spurious, the visit duration short and the motivations guiding the visitors' behaviour predominantly hedonic in nature.

The impact of the natural landscape underlines the premise that an experiential research approach can yield valuable insights and sheds new light on the fact that a memorable experience for a wine tourist does not only evolve inside the winery's cellar door. In the process it exposits what could be unique selling points for marketing differently positioned wine regions.

This study is of value to academic researchers, travel and accommodation providers and wine industry practitioners alike as it highlights important aspects of wine tourism behaviour with regard to the actual (underlying) motivations that drive them to visit cellar doors in a wine region.

The present paper investigates the relationship between the type of wine tourist motivation and how much importance wine tourists motivated by each type give to the wine servicescape. The underlying assumption is that wine customers driven by the secondary motivators like socialization and entertainment consider servicescape as more important to their satisfaction than their counterparts driven by the primary motivators like wine tasting and wine buying. Empirical examination conducted among wine tourists visiting Goa proves this assumption. Potential implications of the study are also discussed. Keywords: Wine tourism, wine tourist motivation and its components, servicescape, and India.

Understanding the role of emotion, landscape, involvement and storytelling related to wine is the basis for understanding the wine tourist experience. The purpose of this study is to analyze the validity and reliability of the wine experience scale in Spain.

The scale validation comprised translation, cultural adaptation and validity, in which 250 wine tourists (45.6% male and 54.4% female) from 17 Spanish wineries participated. Data was collected on different days during three consecutive months. To carry out the analyses, IBM SPSS and JASP software were used.

The statistical procedures used allowed the verification of psychometric properties as well as adjustment indices and reliability measures. The analyses carried out retained 16 items and ensured grouping into four factors: wine storytelling, wine involvement, winescape and wine tasting excitement.

By providing this instrument, it will be possible to create a promising path of commercial knowledge. Its application will contribute to establishing a more accurate profile of wine tourists and, simultaneously, to adapting a sustainable tourist offer.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the “motivation-satisfaction-loyalty” framework. Through a structural equation model (SEM), it is possible to disentangle attitudinal and behavioral loyalty as a multifaceted latent variable.

The empirical analysis is based on data collected in wineries located in two important wine destinations: Trentino and South Tyrol (Italy). Notably, the motivation–satisfaction relationship is confirmed, and the SEM has also assessed the importance of winery services in affecting loyalty, expressed in terms of “visit other cellars,” “repeat a wine vacation” and “recommend wine routes.”

Destination managers should consider the wine-related “relaxation” as the main push motivation, while the interactions experience are important pull motivations to drive wine tourists’ satisfaction. Nevertheless, the findings reveal that more proactive policies are needed to enhance local wines loyalty.

The novelty of this study is to explore loyalty. In this respect, a multifaceted latent variable is expressed as follows: “buy local wines,” “visit other cellars,” “repeat a wine vacation” as behavioral attitudinal stated loyalty and “recommend wine routes” as attitudinal stated loyalty.

The purpose of this exploratory consumer research study was to examine demographic and behavioral characteristics and motivations of wine travelers on the recently established Iowa Wine Trail in rural Northeast Iowa. An array of data on visitor lifestyles, interests, attitudes and values can provide more powerful and actionable research information than demographics alone. Equipped with an understanding of visitor motivations, wineries and vineyards can provide their customers the experience they want and expect, and not products and services they are assumed to desire.

Data for this study were collected using a questionnaire-based survey administered at three participating wineries over the period of April-November 2005.

The demographic profile of visitors on the Iowa Wine Trail falls within a common stereotype of a wine tourist: middle aged (36-55 years old), highly educated (college or postgraduate), in the moderate to high income bracket (higher than the median household income in Iowa), living in close proximity to the Iowa Wine Trail (mostly Iowa residents). The main motives for visiting the wineries were (in order by mean scores) “to taste wine”, “to enjoy the scenery”, “to have a good time with friends and family”, “to relax”, “to support local wine producers”, and “to taste locally produced foods”. This finding supports the statement that wine tourists are often drawn by the whole “local experience package”, and not only by the wine product itself.

Findings of this study provide demographic and behavioral characteristics and motivations of wine tourists in rural Northeast Iowa only and should not be generalized to other rural areas.

The Iowa Wine Trail attracts typical wine customers, but also younger visitors and females. Rather high incidence of repeat visitors for a trail that is still in its infancy (52 percent), with the mean number of previous visits being 2.64. Importance of word of mouth and eMarketing: over 40 percent of visitors to the Iowa Wine Trail based their choice on word of mouth (to include prior recommendations, suggestions, or reputation), and almost a third of travelers indicated utilizing web sites for information seeking – a number that is higher when compared to other specialized markets in Iowa. The Iowa Wine Trail appeals both to stereotypical wine tourists and those visitors who are not primarily involved with the wine product but nonetheless still visit wineries. Power of rural ambience and appeal of the Iowa landscape: while wine tasting appeared to be the main motive of visiting the wineries, scenery and landscape of the Upper Mississippi River, along with the opportunity to enjoy time with friends and family and taste local foods, scored similarly high.

While demographic characteristics of wine tourists have been explored, few studies focused on visitor motivations. In addition, most of wine tourism research has focused on established and functioning wine regions/appellations. Not much is known about the emerging wine culture in rural Midwestern states embracing opportunities of wine and tourism development, en route to diversification from traditional agriculture.

The purpose of this paper is to provide greater understanding of attractiveness of different wine region types, especially less attractive wine regions. The paper examines the different wine tourist segments’ preferences towards wine region types.

The preferences of wine tourists were analysed based on an online self-administered survey with 8,552 respondents in Hungary. The wine regions were divided into four categories based on their wine and touristic attractiveness: wine dominant, touristic attraction dominant, complex and non-dominant wine regions. Wine region types were examined based on wine travel frequency and also by subjective wine expertise.

Wine tourist groups based on wine travel frequency and subjective wine expertise have significantly different preferences towards wine region types. Less attractive wine regions are more popular among frequent travellers and wine experts.

The outcome of this research highlights the importance of designing diverse marketing strategies depending on the wine region type. Less attractive wine regions and little-known wineries should focus on frequent travellers and wine experts and provide a complex and high standard experience, as these consumers are more open and have higher expectations of a travel destination.

The study revealed the different wine tourist preferences with regard to the various types of wine regions. Wine-related and non-wine-related aspects were studied in a complex manner.

The purpose of this paper is to use a new segmentation approach based on objective variables to calculate direct tourism-related sales volume and revenue by selling wine at a winery in the Rheingau region of Germany.

In the framework of a 2015 face-to-face survey in the Rheingau, 1,555 tourists were interviewed. For segmentation, two-step clustering was applied to classify survey participants into homogeneous groups. To calculate tourism-related wine sales volume and revenue, a special model based on official statistics and the survey’s results was used.

Four wine-tourist segments were identified by using cluster analysis with objective variables, such as nationality, visiting frequency and volume of wine purchased in the region: wine and Rheingau lovers who have a high interest in wine, wine-oriented tourists who do not come to the region very often, first-time tourists who came to the region mainly because of the nature and history and international tourists. With the help of calculations on tourism-related wine sales volume and revenue, it can be stated that approximately 18 per cent of total wine production will be purchased directly in the region by tourists, valued at €36m.

This paper contributes to existing wine-tourism research because a multi-dimensional segmentation model was applied using objective variables, such as nationality, visiting frequency and volume of wine purchased in the region. Using the calculation of tourism-related sales volume and revenue, winemakers in the Rheingau can gain a clear picture of tourism’s importance.

Wine tourism is emerging as a lucrative industrial sector, capable of generating considerable economic development, and there are numerous wine‐producing regions that would like to become new tourist destinations. To do so the agents involved must know the incentives for and barriers to (the participation of) potential tourists, as well as the significance of those incentives and barriers. This paper seeks to address these issues.

An analysis of opinions from a sample of residents in Aragón, an important wine‐producing region of Spain, established the main groups of existing incentives. Subsequently, a model of structural equations was considered, to establish what effect the previously‐obtained incentives and different existing barriers have on the intention to generate wine tourism.

The results indicate that the services offered by wineries and the appeal of the destination are the key incentives. Moreover, personal barriers constitute the main impediment to participating in wine tourism, with structural barriers taking second place.

It is necessary to develop strategies that increase interest in the wine product and in related activities, in order to successfully develop wine tourism, considering that, in the case studied, neither cost nor time nor distance act as barriers for developing wine tourism.

A review of the existing literature shows that, in spite of the growing interest in wine tourism over the last five years in Spain, much remains to be explored. An analysis of the factors that could have an impact on participation in tourism activities related to wine in Spain is among the topics receiving little attention. The tested model includes incentives for, and barriers to, the strategic development of wine tourism. This model represents the first empirical proposal for the Spanish case.