Wine tourism suppliers’ and visitors’ experiential priorities

This study aims to investigate the alignment of experience economy design priorities and perceptions of rural wine tourism suppliers (i.e. winery-farm owners, restaurateurs retailers, lodging providers, attraction operators) with tourists’ perceived experiences.

Adapting the 4E (educational, escapist, esthetic and entertainment) measurement scales of Oh et al. (2007), a cross-sectional survey design was used to gather data from 169 suppliers and 970 wine tourists. Factor analyses, t-tests and ANOVA tests were used to explore differences.

Supply-side cohesion among the four supplier groups appeared across all experiential design priorities and across three of the 4Es regarding their perceptions of the destination; esthetics was the exception. Significant differences between suppliers’ design priorities and visitors’ experiential perceptions were found on three experiential dimensions, and alignment on esthetics was revealed.

Unique attributes of the destination may have affected the results with further development of the supplier measurement scale recommended. Results of the tests that used surrogate variables should be approached with caution.

The study underscores the esthetic experience’s importance to wine tourists and suppliers alike. Results suggest where suppliers should focus their efforts to improve wine tourists’ experiences and what suppliers may expect to emphasize rather than those emphasized by destination managers, i.e. entertainment and education.

This is the first study to compare experience economy priorities of multiple supply-side stakeholders and wine tourists’ perceived experiences.