A model of wine tourist behavior: A festival approach

The study constructs a temporal model of wine tourist behavior on the basis of the social psychologist' theory of consumer attitudes and related concepts with regard to past behavior, satisfaction, perceived value, and behavioral intentions. This study proposed that wine festival attendees' intentions to revisit the festival would be affected by their satisfaction with, perceived value of, and past behavior regarding the festival. Past visits, satisfaction and intention to revisit resemble respectively the cognitive, affective and conative components conceptualized in the structural model of consumer attitudes. Perceived value was included to strengthen the measurement of satisfaction. Meanwhile, the model attempts to reflect the temporal nature of wine tourist experience by encompassing the stages of pre-visit, on-site visit and post-visit. More importantly, this study added two variables to this model of intentions to revisit by proposing that satisfaction and perceived value had impact on attendees' intentions (1) to visit a local winery and (2) to buy local wine products. Using a path analysis approach and data collected from the attendees at a regional wine festival, the study examined the above relationships. The study also examined the possible mediating effects of demographic characteristics on the variables included in the hypothesized model. The results of this path analysis can be summarized as: (1) past visits influenced future intention to revisit and the level of perceived value but had no effect on levels of satisfaction; (2) perceived value strongly affected satisfaction; (3) satisfaction had an impact on future intentions to revisit, to visit local wineries, and to buy local wine products, while perceived value only affected the former two intentions; and (4) education had medicating effect on intentions to revisit the festival, to visit local wineries, and to buy local wine products. Age had mediating effect on intentions to visit local wineries and to buy local wine products. Income had a mediating effect on intention to revisit the festival. This research makes unique contributions to the area of consumer research in wine tourism from both the theoretical and empirical perspectives. It is believed that results of the present study will be useful to organizers of wine festivals and/or managers of wineries.