Analysing the Experience of Wine Tourists: An Approach from the Wine Routes

Wine tourism represents a promising option for appropriate rural areas. Wine-producing regions have concluded that converting themselves into new tourist destinations can boost their overall development. Wine-based tourism can provide benefits beyond those enjoyed by the wineries themselves (e.g. wine sales), because it can benefit many businesses operating in wine regions, such as restaurants and hotels. Consequently, public and private bodies, such as “Wine Routes of Spain”, in recent years have implemented strategies, in collaboration with other stakeholders in the sector, to encourage and promote high standard, wine-focused, tourism. Many wineries now offer wine tourism activities under the umbrella of these wine routes (which operate similarly to the Destination Management Organisations [DMOs] that represent, for example, coastal resorts). The objective of this chapter is to analyse, and compare, the experiences enjoyed by wine tourists in their visits to wineries that belong, or do not belong, to wine routes, and across different wine routes. To achieve this goal, we analysed, quantitatively and qualitatively, reviews of wineries posted by wine tourists on TripAdvisor, the leading travel and tourism platform.