Wine producers' perceptions of wine tourism

Wine tourism has generated tremendous interest over the last two decades from both, both, industrial and academic circles. Wine tourism is a hybrid activity that integrates wine and tourism industries. Many wine regions and wine producers promote their wine through visitations of wineries. Wine, wine region and wine producers are main elements of wine tourism product. A successful wine tourism experience depends on point of view of producers on visitation to wineries as well as quality of wine and regional attractiveness. On the other hand, tourism is often a secondary product for wine makers, whose primary focus is on grape growing and wine production. Wine producers have an important effect on development of a wine region and quality of wine tourist experiences in this region. For small wine producer, wine tourism can be marketing activity and a promotion tool. However, for large wine producers, wine tourism brings some extra cost for their operations. This study aims is to determine differences of perceptions of wine tourism between wine producers according to their size. A survey of 84 Turkish wineries was conducted to investigate differences of wine tourism perception between wineries according to their production levels. The results indicate that many wine producers are aware of benefits and cost of wine tourism, but that they also vary with the size of the winery.