Hospitality situations, consumer expertise, and perceptions of wine attributes: three empirical studies
International Journal of Wine Business Research
ISSN: 1751-1062
Article publication date: 14 March 2019
Issue publication date: 10 April 2019
Abstract
Purpose
Wine choices are not always fully understood by academic researchers or the industry. This paper aims to outline and test a theoretical model proposing that wine consumption may be dependent on differences in consumer expertise, the hospitality situation, characteristics of the wine itself and an interaction of these variables.
Design/methodology/approach
Three empirical studies (total sample size = 356) tested these theoretical propositions. Consumers with varying levels of wine knowledge were presented with experimental vignettes showing videos of wine opening and pouring and were asked to pair wines with hospitality situations.
Findings
Study 1 found that consumers with low product knowledge were more sensitive to hospitality situations and extrinsic product attributes (closures) than were the experts. Study 2 found that wine hospitality situations fall into three predicted categories, namely, food, friends and formality, although contrary to prediction, the presence of food was the weakest predictors. Study 3 demonstrated the robustness of the three-dimensional structure of wine hospitality situations.
Practical implications
These studies provided important practical information because targeting various market segments requires the industry to know what product attributes are favored by different groups of consumers different situations.
Originality/value
Previous researchers have discussed the difficulty of measuring consumption situations. By limiting these studies to wine consumption within hospitality situations, the authors learned much about how consumers’ characteristics, product attributes and the situations interact to influence not only product assessments but also choices.
Keywords
Citation
Duhan, D.F., Rinaldo, S.B., Velikova, N., Dodd, T. and Trela, B. (2019), "Hospitality situations, consumer expertise, and perceptions of wine attributes: three empirical studies", International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 68-88. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWBR-07-2018-0035
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited