UNIVERSITE DE BORDEAUX

INSTITUT DES SCIENCES DE LA VIGNE ET DU VIN

ACADEMIC YEAR 2020-2021

FINAL EXAM
FIRST SESSION
WINTOUR MASTER – SEMESTER 2

TEACHING UNIT: MANAGEMENT OF WINE TOURISM FIRMS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIPS

(6VMW801U)
DATE: 25th MAY 2021 – 10:00-12:00

Duration: 2 hours
No authorized documents

Please provide your answer on a separate document, saved as PDF, including the name of the
teaching unit, date and time of the exam, and your first and last names and upload it on Formatoile
before the end of the exam.
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Exam marketing of wine tourism Wintour 5.0

A Case Study in the Rhône Valley.
Duration of the exam : 2h

You are right hand man of the winemaker in a Rhodanian estate, 15 km far from of Avignon

Your mission is to manage the communication and the image of the winery and develop the
brand new project of wine tourism : Write a strategy given the health crisis, the changing
behaviour of international & domestic visitors and the growing importance of sustainable
issues.

Location

Located in the commune of Lirac, the winery is working 32ha of vines, 20% AOP Tavel, Lirac
the remaining part as table wine sold under the label of IGP or Vin de France.

Our appellation wines are famous and belong to the best – unfortunately volumes are too
small and we can’t provide all the commands.

Progressively we purchased 25,6 ha of vines producing IGP and Vin de France. The volume of
production has been stabilized for more than 10 years now.

Our strategy is to produce top quality table wine with original blends and not traditional
grape in the Rhône area (Chenin, Petit Verdot, Petit Menseng …) We just start now to thrive
on that new market and our clients demand slowly improve. Our labels found their way to
the most prestigious tables and those of the finest gourmets.

A large range of wine

Lirac and Tavel Prices (retail price at the winery) : 12 to 25 €/bottle 75cl : Biodynamic
production

IGP and Vin de France : 6 to 12€/bottle 75cl for 60% – 20 to 32€/bottle 75cl for the 40% of
that production : Organic production

For the whole volume : 50% red, 35% rosé and 15% white.

Our BtoB network in France and in Europe is well organized, we have now excellent
partnerships with high end importers and retailers - We aim to do the same with the
northern American market.

Our BtoC network is weak, we hardly sell 5% of the global volume, our CRM strategy is quite
new (3 years old) and is not working very well.

Marc Jonas - conseil-oenotourisme.fr

WT3: Management of wine tourism firms, marketing and entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)
 Page |2

Tourist potential

We have a brand new website and FB, Instagram & Linkedin accounts with 1209, 541 and
832 followers.

An old middle age barn has been restaured, in front of the cellar, transformed into a
versatile location for hospitality services (tasting room, shoping area, organization of
events....)

There's no hotels in the village but many luxury bed&breakfirst - many good and 2
gastronomic restaurants nearby.

Avignon (100 000 inhabitants) is the main tourist center with a large tourist offer (hotels,
restaurants, services, cultural events …) there’s 3 travel incoming agencies and 9 VTC (driving
tour guide) companies. 1 travel incoming agencies specialized in winetours in Aix en
Provence. A TGV station Avignon to Paris (speed train links in 2h30 for 750km)

Lirac is 5 km away from a motorway exit, 40 minutes away from Nîmes, 1h from Aix en
Provence and Marseille, 3 h away from Nice, 4h far from Barcelona just 10 min from the
famous Châteauneuf du Pape.

Marseille has an impressive tourist growth particularly attracting visitors from the world,
Cruise boats on the Mediterranean provide a big sightseeing demande for tours 100km
around.

300 sunny days, lukewarm climate with 3 very hot month (july august September)
traditionaly the seasons starts early april to end of october but there’s a good opportunity
to enlarge the season to New Year Eve

50 000 visitors at the theater Avignon Festival in july : 86% French - 320 000 visitors in the
Pope Palace.

7 000 000 winetourists in 2010 in France 70% French - 10 000 0000 winetourists in 2016 in
France 60% French – the foreign share is still increasing

12 500 000 passengers Nice airport

20 trains TGV Paris Avignon / day in july august

50 000 customers on cruise boats on the river Rhône

4 000 000 visitors in Vaucluse department (administrative geographical organization) where

Avignon is.

Marc Jonas - conseil-oenotourisme.fr

WT3: Management of wine tourism firms, marketing and entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)
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History & agriculture

The old farm of a monastery belonging to the bishop of Avignon in the 14th C, has been in
the hands of the same family since 1780.

Old documents bear witness to the fact that vines have been cultivated here from time
immemorial. The historic reputation of its wines has made at the winery a prime example of
the Rhone terroir.

Its elegant silhouette stands between two majestic yew and many plane trees against
a background of rounded hills carperted of garrigue (wild Mediterranean vegetation).

The winery is firmly established on a vast terrace overlooking the oldest parts of the
vineyard… The gardens of the estate are tastefully landscaped with a variety of
shrubs and greenery arranged around a pond, forming a link with the vineyard in a
series of successive terraces.

The cellars of the winery were dug out in the 17th century by a religious order. They
consist of several remarkably authentic galleries on different levels and were later
enlarged by successive generations of the family. Their homogeneous temperatures
and natural humidity make them particularly suitable for storing and aging wines.

The vineyard forms a mosaic of plots surrounded by trees. It has an exceptional average age,
with some plots more than 110 years old grenache! They are cultivated without chemical
fertilizers or weedkillers.

Sustainable agriculture & high environment value certification

For over 20 years, the estate has applied deeply-rooted undertakings: Organic
fertilization uses leaves, vine shoots and other noble organic matter, crushed at the foot of
each vine-plant, which provide the soil with natural balance and stability. Every application
in the vineyard takes environmental impact into consideration.
The team
The agriculture team is highly professional and is able to make wonderful wines. A sales
manager is in charge of the whole distribution with the boss on French, European and
northern American markets. With you, he is the only english speaking people at the winery.
The winemaker understands the rising demand for wine tourism, he’s aware of the power of
the digital tool but the digital strategy is managed without particular vision nor skill.

Marc Jonas - conseil-oenotourisme.fr

WT3: Management of wine tourism firms, marketing and entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)
 Page |4

Financing plan
The winemaker has no budget in the short term, there’s no more investment to achieve in
the vineyards and in its commercial network. He needs help to consider investments to
achieve within the 3 to 5 coming years
You must provide him solutions knowing that the company doesn’t big financing
opportunities.
It is necessary to offer him a global project comprising the positioning, customer benefits
and services to put in place as well as management of the wine tourism at the winery.
As winetoursim manager, write the main ideas of the marketing strategy of winetourism.
Emphasize your key points & possible partnerships, you may describe the tourist products
…
 Please write the structure of the operational plan ... You don’t have time to
develop: You are asked for realism, coherence and efficiency
Write short texts, you can make charts, be synthetic …

Rating Scale 20 Points

UX Design vision 4

Advices & creativity 4

Overall vision of the project : positioning, benefits, 4

services, management…

Taking into account the sustainable & CSR issues 4

Realism and feasibility of your proposals 4

 Have a legible handwriting please

Marc Jonas - conseil-oenotourisme.fr

WT3: Management of wine tourism firms, marketing and entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)
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Marc Jonas - conseil-oenotourisme.fr

WT3: Management of wine tourism firms, marketing and entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)
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Figures before the Covid 19 epidemics

Overnight Evolution Percentage of foreign customers

stay

Marc Jonas - conseil-oenotourisme.fr

WT3: Management of wine tourism firms, marketing and entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)
 Page |7

4 millions visitors / years in Vaucluse = 8% of the whole Provence region

20millions overnight stay 54% of which during the summer season
French families expense 1064€ / stay – foreign families expense 2175€ / stay
16385 direct & led jobs – more than 7700 direct jobs

Marc Jonas - conseil-oenotourisme.fr

WT3: Management of wine tourism firms, marketing and entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)