Understanding the Wine Tourist Markets’ Motivations, Travel Constraints and Perceptions of Destination Attributes: A Case Study of Winery Visitors in Sardinia, Italy

Abstract

As the growth of wine tourism around the world has become substantial, wine tourist markets’ motivations and their behavioural patterns have become more diverse. In the existing literature, three major segments of wine tourists with different levels of wine-oriented motivations, wine drinking behaviour and wine knowledge have been usually identified, ranging from wine lovers to wine-interested tourists and casual wine tourists. More recently, this market research approach is beginning to move beyond segmentation based merely on a wine-oriented motivation or wine drinking behaviour. Thus, to create a wine tourism-oriented experience, it is necessary to consider other information about why tourists visit certain types of wine regions, what constraints affect their wine travel behaviour, and what types of tourism destination experiences or services tourists prefer to have, besides gaining wine-related knowledge or tasting wine. Such market information can be helpful to maximise wine tourism destinations’ potentials and satisfy different needs of wine tourist segments. This chapter examines the profile of wine tourists visiting wineries in Sardinia (n = 267) and compares them based on their motivations, wine travel-related constraints and perceptions of wine destination attractions, and tourism services. The findings of the study identify three clusters, namely ‘wine lovers’, ‘wine culture tourists’ and ‘casual wine tourists’.