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ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS: special-interest tourism, travel motivation, wine festival, wine tourism
As special-interest tourism, wine tourism is becoming increasingly important for wine-growing regions. But wine marketers are faced with a paucity of empirical data when examining wine tourists' characteristics and behaviour. This issue needs to be addressed if marketers want to implement more effective strategies to target the market. Visiting wine festivals is an important component in the complete construct of wine tourism. What might have motivated the participants to visit such an event has become critical for wine-growing destinations when they attempt to use wine festivals to promote the wineries and regions. This research study used a survey instrument specially designed to test participants' motivations to attend a regional wine festival in a Midwestern state in the USA. Both festival and wine tourism motivations were integrated in the measurement scale. The findings showed that attendees were motivated by a variety of factors which were associated with the focus on the different elements incorporated in the theme of the festival - a synergy of wine, travel and special event. Wine festivals can be used as a vehicle to attract younger people to become more interested in wine. They create a good venue to tap into future target markets for wine tourism development.
INTRODUCTION
Wine tourism is a newly emerged form of alternative tourism that overlaps both the wine and tourism industries. Wine tourism has been recognised as part of agricultural tourism, rural tourism, cultural tourism, industrial tourism and special-interest tourism. This diversity of terms associated with wine tourism reflects the close connection between wine and tourism, with tourism becoming increasingly important in many wine-growing regions throughout the world.1 Wine tourism is emerging as a valuable component of rural diversification and economic development,2 acting as an income generator at both the regional and individual business levels.
Wine tourism has become a big business for many regions.3 In Australia, where wine tourism has developed in several states and territories, there were almost 4.4 million international and domestic visitors to Australian wineries during 2002 and expenditures on wine tourism were nearly A$965m in 1999/2000.4 Wineries and vineyards in the state of California saw 10.7 million visitors in 2002 who spent US$1.2bn.5 Even in Indiana, which is described...