Tourism and Hospitality Management (Jan 2023)
Multivariate statistical analysis of wine festival visitors experience, Doctoral Dissertation Summary
Abstract
Travel for the purpose of visiting festivals represents a fast-growing segment of the tourism market and is a unique opportunity for destinations development based on the fact that festivals provide various economic benefits to the local community. Festivals can have a significant effect on promotion and brand awareness of a destination and are capable of generating significant tourism income. Organizing festivals can attract visitors to the destination outside of the main tourist season and possibly even to destinations and regions they would not otherwise consider visiting. Festival environment can provide a unique and memorable experience to the visitors based around their specific interests. Providing memorable experiences to festival visitors leads to multiple positive outcomes and should be the focus of festival organizers and researchers. Wine festivals combine elements of wine and festival tourism and are a perfect opportunity to create unique experiences. They are defined as special events which are based on showcasing local wines, food and culture. Wine festivals are usually held in picturesque settings within wine regions which only adds to their attractiveness and makes them an ideal platform to create memorable experiences. Visiting wine festivals can be a main motive for travel to a certain destination as well as a specific experience that visitors want to immerse in during their stay at a destination. A comprehensive literature reviews has revealed a limited amount of research that views wine festival visitors experience as a multidimensional construct. Experience economy research has been based on the assumption that consumption has a hedonistic component and that decisions on purchases (or travel) are made with a combination of rational (cognitive) and irrational (emotional) elements. Multidimensional model of consumer experience has been originally proposed by Pine and Gilmore (1999) which consisted of four dimensions (escape, education, entertainment and environment) and has since been the base of a large number of tourism studies that have empirically tested the concept in various tourism settings. Research has shown that tourism experiences are subjective to the consumer and context specific. In other words, experience and its underlining dimensions will greatly vary depending on the platform on which they are created (i.e., restaurant, festival, resort, shopping) and will depended on the different kind of socio-demographic and psychological characteristics of the consumer. Therefore, purpose of this research is to conceptualize a theoretical framework that explains the experience of wine festival visitors through its dimensions, ancendents and consequences. From an empirical standpoint the goal of the research is to segment wine festival visitors based on the developed framework within the experience economy context.
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