Cultural Wine Tourists: Product Development Considerations for British Columbia's Resident Wine Tourism Market

Emerging initiatives in British Columbia and elsewhere clearly suggest that by working with tourism stakeholders, the wine industry can not only contribute to the development of rural tourism, but it can also gain valuable direct marketing and value added sales advantages. For these benefits to be fully realized, more must be known about the character of travel markets interested in wine tourism. To provide insights into BC's domestic wine tourist markets, this research involves two overriding phases of investigation. Initially, it conducts an overview analysis of BC's domestic wine tourists. The second phase of the study involves describing a small but valuable and growing niche market of culturally oriented wine tourists. It then suggests several product development strategies suited to attracting and retaining such wine tourists. The strategies relate to incorporating a range of wine and non‐wine related activities into the tourism experience, creating strong connections between local wines and regional cuisine, building cultural and heritage dimensions into wine tourism product packages, incorporating and promoting environmentally friendly resource management practices; and, protecting wine tourism landscapes. While the empirical part of this investigation is focused on BC wine tourists, the findings provide insights into strategies suited to other wine producing regions in Canada and elsewhere.