Digitalization as a driver of transformation towards sustainable performance in wine tourism – the Italian case Open Access

Wine tourism has lately become an essential activity that complements and supplements the growth of the wine industry (Festa et al., 2015). Festa et al. (2020) have further argued that although born as an ancillary service, wine tourism has evolved into an increasingly profitable business for the global wine offer. This evolution has demanded advanced and specified knowledge, competence and expertise for designing, organizing and implementing ever more attractive wine tourism solutions (Popp and McCole, 2016).

This situation is common to the Old, the New and the Third World of Wine (Banks and Overton, 2010), but it is naturally more developed in those countries where the wine sector is crucial for economic affairs by ensuring a stable production and supply chain for decent consumption (Festa et al., 2019). Wine tourism is thus significantly important more specifically for Italy, which is one of the most attractive countries for national and international tourism and where wine tourism in general receives special attention, because of the very relevant role of the country in the wine sector at the international level (Tommasetti and Festa, 2014).

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced all of the operators in the tourist industry to completely reconsider their overall and individual offerings, because this sector has quite probably been the one that has been most affected by the coronavirus-induced disaster (Gössling et al., 2021), with all of the features of the retailing industry (Kolte et al., 2021) and inevitably requiring a more sustainable approach (Madanaguli et al., 2021), even at the aggregate level (Truant et al., 2021). In the search for a reaction to this health, social and economic crisis, wine tourism can find in digitalization a key driver to guide its sustainable evolution towards survival and development (Sá et al., 2021), leveraging the capability of digitalization, and more specifically, of related data valorization, in assisting product, process and business model innovation (Bresciani et al., 2021; Rialti et al., 2019).

Sustainability has become an essential and strategic issue for every kind of business, almost with an ambidextrous nature (Kolte et al., 2022). Even the wine industry has been hugely affected, perhaps because it includes all of the economic sectors in its functioning – that is, grape production (primary sector), wine transformation (secondary sector) and wine sales, with related connected activities, such as wine tourism (tertiary sector) (Sellitto, 2006). However, with specific reference to wine tourism, although the logical and methodological connection between digitalization and sustainability seems a key topic of interest for research in the field (e.g. Cantino et al., 2019; Rauhut-Kompaniets, 2022; Zamarreño Aramendia et al., 2021), there seem to be very few studies that highlight the direct connection among digitalization, sustainability and performance (see, e.g. Sá et al., 2021).

The remainder of this paper, specifically focusing on understanding if and how digitalization affects sustainability and performance in wine tourism, is organized as follows. After a theoretical background about sustainability in wine tourism as an “intrinsic” critical success factor with respect to other forms of tourism, an integrated model has been proposed, followed by an application to the Italian wine tourism sector, chosen as a sort of extreme case. The results are then discussed, and the implications and limitations have been presented.

Wine tourism traditionally is an example of sustainable tourism, primarily because it can be considered a peculiar form of rural tourism, physiologically connected to nature, country, “green” and so on (Bresciani et al., 2016; Frost et al., 2020; Nave et al., 2021a; Smyczek et al., 2020). However, other profiles that are strictly related to the wine sector enrich the sustainable perspective of wine tourism (Duarte Alonso and Liu, 2012; Poitras and Getz, 2006; Vrontis et al., 2016), including the overall concept of the “terroir” (Marlowe and Sojung, 2018), the social experience of the tasting with the producer (Bruwer et al., 2013) and the awareness of a slow, laborious and pensive world (Foroudi et al., 2019).

Naturally, all of these aspects have evolved over the years in association with ever more inventive solutions for increasing the overall attractiveness of the wine tourism offerings, and technology in general has contributed to innovate the global “packages”, using the Internet, social networks and apps for, among other things, finding, commenting on and interacting with the various wine tourism experiences (Canovi and Pucciarelli, 2019; Dimitrovski et al., 2019; Duarte Alonso et al., 2013; Festa et al., 2015; Kirova, 2021; Martins et al., 2017; Pelet et al., 2019). Nonetheless, as wine in general and wine tourism more specifically are two examples of goods/services that in truth are above all “cultural” (Duarte Alonso et al., 2021; Mitchell et al., 2012; Williams and Kelly, 2001), they constitute perfect examples of digitizable platforms, and many wineries had already begun their evolution towards digitalization – in most cases with little investment, but in the direction that has been highlighted (Scorrano, 2011). Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the situation in the tourism sector (Yeh, 2020). For example, in Italy, which is the most productive country in the world in the wine sector and with other relevant records that set it as most probably the most relevant country in the world concerning wine (D'Amato et al., 2021; Smyczek et al., 2020), the economic expansion of wine tourism was sharply arrested in the more critical COVID-19 period, because of the limitations imposed on movements due to the lockdowns.

Thus, a new, innovative and tremendous digitalization of wine tourism experiences seems essential to drive the sector towards survival and development (Levitskaia et al., 2020); however, as mentioned, although several studies have analysed the contribution of technology to a more sustainable wine tourism experience (Duarte Alonso et al., 2020; Sekhniashvili, 2020), a theoretical gap in the scientific literature on wine tourism seems to exist about the specific connection between digitalization and sustainability, especially in one assumes that digitalization is a potential influencer/moderator in the connection between sustainability and performance.

These aspects seem even more relevant with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic and its dramatic effects on the tourist industry in general and on the wine industry more specifically (Marco-Lajara et al., 2022; Niklas et al., 2022; Santos et al., 2022). From one point of view there is major request for sustainability in general, with an environment of respect that also means safety for the wine tourists (Gastaldello et al., 2022); from another point of view there is the necessity of accurately selecting the investments for profitability, most of all after the economic problems for the businesses derived from the lockdown (Duarte Alonso et al., 2022). This study has been conceived exactly in this vein.

Starting from the considerations that emerged from the literature review, this investigation targeted wineries that are engaged in wine tourism with the following research questions:

This research is characterized by a mixed nature, and it was developed from an exploratory perspective. RQ1 and RQ2 are associated with a more quantitative profile of the investigation to highlight the potential connections among digitalization, sustainability and performance. RQ3 is associated with a more qualitative profile of research, most of all when considering the applied methodology.

The sample under analysis represents all the wineries that have been investigated in the 2019 National Report on Wine Tourism provided by the National Association of the Italian “Wine Cities” (www.cittadelvino.com), the most authoritative entity in Italy on the analysis, governance and development of wine territories (i.e. it is a convenience sample, based on 92 wineries). The data refer to 2019 conditions, and the intention of the research is to highlight potential evidence for responding to the RQs in “normal” conditions, hypothesizing that incoming digital transformations due to the COVID-19 pandemic will coherently affect the wineries that have been first movers (or followers) concerning the connection between digitalization and sustainability.

Several pieces of data that are useful for the current research have been retrieved from the 2019 National Report on Wine Tourism; the data in question have been disaggregated and re-aggregated to analytically construct a theoretical framework that could be in line with the Triple Bottom Line model, which includes people, planet and profit (Elkington, 1998). Thus, we built three macro-agglomerates of the data for every winery under investigation (92 × 3 = 276 in total): the first is called “Digitalization” (constituted at the micro-level by the elements of the National Report that are ascribable to the technology used for wine tourism); the second is called “Sustainability” (constituted at the micro-level by the elements of the National Report that are ascribable at the meso-level to the three traditional sustainable sub-agglomerates: people, planet and profit); and the third is called “Performance” (constituted at the micro-level by the elements of the National Report that are ascribable to the tourism success of the winery).

To better analyse all of these pieces of information in light of the research questions, two separate subsections have been provided, one with reference to descriptive statistics and the other to inferential statistics. The elements of the National Report that can be associated with the macro-agglomerates have been detected from content analysis that was developed using standard software application tools, with further association on a qualitative basis.

The data under investigation was retrieved from the 2019 National Report on Wine Tourism, and, as secondary data, they have not been engineered for this specific research (i.e. for analysing the potential connection first between digitalization and sustainability, and then, between sustainability and performance directly). It has first been necessary to adopt descriptive statistics to detect, extract, analyse, aggregate and represent the available data from the perspective of the scope of the current research.

The following tables show the results emerging, on average, from the database under consideration to support the construction of the three macro-agglomerates. Table 1 focuses on digitalization, Table 2 on sustainability and Table 3 on performance.

After the analysis of the average data, the subsequent investigation was implemented with reference to the single units of research (i.e. the 92 responding wineries). In the related virtual database, the dependent variable entitled “Performance” was analysed with reference to the potential connection with digitalization and sustainability, using the number of “Yesses” that it was possible to retrieve for the individual wineries regarding the three macro-agglomerates; thus, a single winery can number 5 at most for “digitalization”, 18 for “sustainability”, and 2 for “performance”. After detecting these data, it was possible to extract the different associations between digitalization and sustainability, followed by performance. The related calculations are presented in Table 4 and Table 5 (there are no items with zero values for either digitalization or sustainability).

The evidence emerging from Tables 4 and 5 is clear. From Table 4, the more that wineries are digitalized, the more sustainable are and the better they perform (there is only one limited incongruity concerning the performance results about 1.12 and 1.33); however, from Table 5, it does not appear that the more sustainable wineries are, the more digitalized they are, and there seems to be no relationship with performance. Inferential statistics are thus required to potentially understand in detail the possible connections.

Notwithstanding the visible evidence emerging from the above-described observations, when applying a multiple regression test to the values under analysis there is a very relevant limit – that is, the limited number of observations. In the digitalization > sustainability > performance approach, only 5 modalities can be extracted, while in the sustainability > digitalization > performance approach there are only 17.

More specifically, when inferring the wineries' performance as a dependent variable from digitalization (first) and sustainability (second) as independent variables, the software calculation generates R² = 0.79 (robust) and an adjusted R² = 0.58 (less robust), but most of all, the significance test and the p-values are not acceptable, and this is naturally due to the number of observations (i.e. 0.79–0.58 = 0.21). When inferring the wineries' performance as a dependent variable from sustainability (first) and digitalization (second) as independent variables, the software calculation generates R² = 0.95 (very robust) and an adjusted R² = 0.95 (also very robust), but unfortunately, while the significance test is acceptable, the p-values are acceptable for sustainability but not for digitalization, thus not providing reliable support to the statistical model.

The 2019 National Report on Wine Tourism of the National Association of “Wine Cities” in Italy has been considered a fundamental source for this study, and it has been investigated to detect all of the possible elements that could be associated with digitalization (5, as in Table 1); sustainability (18, as in Table 2); and performance (2, as in Table 3). While building the three macro-agglomerates – and above all digitalization and sustainability – it was noted that, in general, the level of digitalization is appreciable (see Table 1), while the level of sustainability shows some limits (in the “People” dimension; more particularly, severe concerns emerged with reference to the accessibility needed for disabled people); the evidence has thus been provided for responding to RQ1 and RQ2.

First, the digitalization measure (calculated for each winery) was considered as an independent variable for the sustainability measure (calculated for each winery) as the dependent variable (providing potential response to RQ1). Second, the sustainability measure (calculated for each winery) was then considered as the independent variable for the performance measure (calculated for each winery) as the dependent variable (providing a potential response to RQ2).

Some correlation exists between the adopted level of digitalization and the performed sustainability (ρ = 0.40), but the robustness is low (R² = 0.16 and adjusted R² = 0.15), so the response to RQ1 (Does a positive correlation exist between the adopted digitalization and the performed sustainability?) is no. Higher correlation values exist between the performed sustainability and business performance (ρ = 0.45), but the robustness is again low, although higher (R² = 0.21 and Adjusted R² = 0.18); thus the response to RQ2 (Does a positive correlation exist between the performed sustainability and the market performance?) is again no.

Instead, there is concrete evidence concerning the potential response to RQ3 (What is the possible interaction between digitalization and sustainability with a conjoint effect on business performance?), which can be presumed from the analysis shown in Tables 4 and 5; although following inferential statistics did not provide robust confirmation, the data emerging from the descriptive analysis are relevant. The response of the current research to RQ3 is that the more digitalized wineries are, the more sustainable they are, and the better their performance, although the inverse is not true – there does not appear to be a link from sustainability through digitalization to performance.

To close the loop of the logical reasoning of this study, the main evidence emerging from the investigation is that digitalization in wine tourism, at least for the wineries under examination, includes several business capabilities that are useful for generating not only related sustainability, but also adequate performance. Sustainability in wine tourism, however, when not supported by coherent digitalization – at least for the wineries under examination – may provide different outcomes, not always adequate, in terms of related performance.

From a theoretical point of view, digitalization in wine tourism emerges as a sort of influencing variable in the correlation between sustainability and performance, which is in line with the economic recovery theory (Cheng and Zhang, 2020; Dogru and Bulut, 2018; Wu et al., 2021). Although limited to organization and communication activities, considering the service-based impact of wine tourism, technology makes it easier for sustainability to emerge, with following (moderating?) effect on the economic performance of wine tourism.

From a practical point of view, sustainability can be a lever for the development of wine tourism (Nave et al., 2021a, b; Sun and Drakeman, 2022); however, wine entrepreneurs, managers and professionals must take into careful consideration the connected technology – most of all, as expected, in the current and future coexistence with the COVID-19 pandemic (Khandelwal et al., 2022). Particular attention should probably be paid more specifically to the potential contribution of artificial intelligence to the progress of wine tourism experiences, even in terms of sustainability and naturally related performance – at least for tourist satisfaction, as highlighted by several recent studies in the field (Bhanu and Kumar, 2019; Garner and Kim, 2022; Loureiro, 2022).

Wine tourism has become a valuable activity for the wine sector, at the supplementary, complementary or even the “core” level. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced enterprises in general to imagine, design and implement innovative business solutions; this is true for the tourist industry in general and for wine tourism in particular. Tourists in the near and far future will call for safer, healthier and generally more sustainable experiences. Wine tourism has great chances in this respect, with its intrinsic “green” essence while also adopting original experience profiles.

This research has shown a conjoined effect for digitalization and sustainability in the wine tourism sector, with specific reference to the Italian case, considering its leadership position in the wine sector, but only within the digitalization > sustainability > performance approach; digitalization quite likely acts as an influencer (maybe even moderator) in the relationship between sustainability and performance. Most probably, this logical connection will constitute a relevant methodological platform for the innovative development of wine tourism in Italy and in the rest of the world.

This investigation is limited to Italy, so the results may not be generalizable. The number of respondents could also be increased, and the micro-elements that represent digitalization, sustainability and performance could be expanded. The survey was also conducted in 2019, before the tremendous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, so further research is necessary to overcome these limitations and assess the reliability of the hypothesized connection involving the three dimensions in question (digitalization, sustainability and performance) for the development of wine tourism. From a strictly methodological point of view, the most relevant limit of the research is due to the embedded connection with the 2019 National Report on Wine Tourism of the National Association of “Wine Cities” and its related variables/figures. Although the report in question is unanimously considered the most authoritative in the field in Italy, other reports or even specific research about specific indicators of digitalization and sustainability and their connection could provide different (more focused) results.