Which winery visit do wine tourists prefer? An explorative analysis in Italy

Wine tourism plays an important role in enhancing a region’s economy, especially for specific areas of origin of renowned wines. Indeed, these areas benefit from the presence of many visitors that are mainly driven by wine tasting and winery visit’s experience. However, to be competitive in the market, wineries needs to deepen their knowledge about the main drivers of wine tourism and to better profile their visitors. This study contributes to the existing literature by exploring wine tourists’ preferences for winery visits; particularly, a survey was conducted on a convenience sample of 150 wine tourists of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG wine area in Italy. According to the level of both their wine involvement and new variety seeking behaviour, the sample was divided into four segments: namely, “Enthusiast explorers”, “Average seekers”, “Wine neutrals” and “Passionate conservatives”.This study can be seen as a starting point for those wineries which want to improve their comprehension of wine tourists.