Digital Winescape and Online Wine Tourism: Comparative Insights from Crete and Santorini

Abstract

In the pursuit of sustainability and competitiveness, digital aspects of the tourism experience become increasingly more significant and wine tourism is no exception to this. Still, studies building on established concepts and sustainable practices in the corporate environment often prioritize physical attributes. One such example refers to winescape frameworks, which are yet to explicitly incorporate the digital experience, despite the growing importance of the digital servicescape. This study contributes to this area by commenting on available data on winery websites and adopting the winescape concept to analyze social media activity during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The population of the study includes 53 wineries, located in two well-known Greek wine tourism destinations, namely Crete and Santorini. The results identify the most common winescape components that wineries emphasize, revealing similarities and differences across the two destinations. Implications highlight the winescape dimensions that (should) matter the most when considering digital experiences, and provide insights for wine tourism scholars and businesses alike towards a more sustainable wine supply chain.

Visitor’s Motivational Framework and Wine Routes’ Contribution to Sustainable Agriculture and Tourism

“…The best Italian WRs are the WRs of Piedmont, Friuli, Veneto, Sardinia, Tuscany, and Sicily (Italian regions from north to south). The WT sector, in Italy, has been growing slightly, year after year, since 2019 [27]. Nevertheless, due to the necessary closures adopted in different countries around the world to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 and 2021, the tourist sector faced a dramatic halt.…”

“…However, in a continent like Europe with such a rich cultural heritage, WRs are designed to be more than just an opportunity to taste fine wines (accompanied by the local cuisine). Indeed, these routes allow travelers to experience the social, cultural, and environmental attributes that lend a distinctive character to each wine route because of their own regional identity [1][2][3][4]8,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27].…”

“…Please, based on your opinion, order from 1 to 17 the following motivations that prompted you to visit this winery or return (from the most important as the first to the less important as the seventeenth)". The variables (motivations to be ordered) of the motivational item (question Q m ) were chosen by authors based on a review of the relevant literature [1,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]49,50] on the subject, a preliminary study of the territorial features [3,6,31,45,46], and a previous work [51].…”

“…Other studies explored the value dimensions of a tourism consumption experience [12][13][14] or the importance of supplementary services [6]. Moreover, other authors explored the characteristics of demand for long-distance WT among wine consumers located far from wine regions [26], or the impact of digital technologies on visitors' experience [27].…”

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“…While the disruption caused by COVID-19 has undoubtedly lent a heavy blow to the revenues of countless wineries worldwide, it has also been a thrust towards digitalisation in wine tourism offerings. Several wineries relied on digital tools to cope with COVID-19 challenges and remain in contact with their consumers (Alebaki et al 2022). Wineries adopted a variety of social media platforms to engage with customers through online events.…”