Food & Drinks Tourism
Wine Tourism, as well as all culinary travel has been a growing trend for many years. However, in a more narrow definition, food & drinks tourism as a major or single travel motivator means yet growth in a demanding niche market.
Destinations define culinary travel quite differently compared to travel companies with a core wine, spirits or food focus.
While RTOs consider every winery visitor a wine tourist, providers of specialized culinary travel the wine and food is the core content of the tours offered, and thus operating in a far more demanding market environment.
In some regions the wine marketing, as public promotion institution or as producers' organisations, are operating under one roof with the region's tourism board. But mostly these organizations operate in separate structures with limited cooperation.
Yet, joint measures and even joint strategies do not only provide synergies in terms of cost and coordination. In rural tourism, joint planning, education and support of producers and providers can create new win-win-situation in foreign markets, which for some wine regions can be different to open up on one theme alone. Infrastructure for tourism and logistics can be planned together, and the environmental challenges can be converted into stronger solutions such as access by public transport or walking / cycling routes.
"Beautiful" wine routes or culinary tracks alone are today not enough to create a strong brand and high awareness. Gastronomic and accommodation offers need to be stimulated and balanced, as well as access by various means of transport.
With 30 years experience in tourism and almost 20 years in wine trade, we have gathered a great deal of experience and remain as passionate to work on issues and developments for a sustainable and successful culinary travel supply.
