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Wbi 107 s10-11 Na Winetour WZ
Wbi 107 s10-11 Na Winetour WZ
N E W S A N A LY S I S
WINE TOURISM
As the film Sideways revealed in 2004, wine tourism is big business in California.
In France and many other regions, however, the notion of visiting wineries for fun
is still in its infancy, obser ves Robert Joseph.
s Frances wine industry slowly
begins to acknowledge the frightening reality of the challenges
it now faces from the New World
and from some of its own more dynamic
European neighbours, a recently-coined
word is increasingly falling from the
lips of Gallic winemakers: Oenotourisme
or wine tourism or agritourism.
I first became interested in this subject
in 2000 when I was invited to address a
Wine Tourism conference in 2000 in
Sydney. The research I did for that presentation left me feeling distinctly less
convinced about a rapidly growing international desire to visit wineries than
most of the other speakers, who generally
agreed that wine tourism was The Next
Big Thing. I explained that poor response
had forced Kuoni, one of the biggest travel
companies in the world to cancel plans to
launch a set of wine tours. I also revealed
the disappointing visitor figures at the
then just opened Vinopolis wine
museum and theme venue in London and
the statistic I had been given by a Hunter
Valley tour operator that the average visitor
to the region wanted to see no more than
one-and-a-half wineries. Global sales of
wine books and magazines had slowed and
television schedulers had little enthusiasm
for wine programmes. In simple terms,
there didnt seem to be much evidence of
growing consumer enthusiasm for wine
as anything beyond a beverage.
More recently, however, I have found
myself taking another, closer look at
the business of wine tourism while
preparing the Wine Travel Guide to the
World, a book which was released by
www.footprintpublishing.co.uk at the
end of 2006. What I discovered was a
far more complex picture than Id perceived
six years earlier - and some fascinating
philosophical differences between regions
and countries. For some producers,
Boom in California
According to a report prepared by
Barbara Insel of MKF Research for the
California Association of Winegrape
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Visitors
California
20m
France
7m
Italy
9m
Spain
6m
Australia
5m
South Africa
2.5m
New Zealand
0.4m
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WINE TOURISM
QUOTE UNQUOTE
In Bordeaux, sadly,
Alice Tourbier
Alice Tourbier is
director of Les Sources
de Caudalie at Chteau
Smith Haut-Lafitte, a
hotel and spa with
50 rooms and
two restaurants.
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