ABSTRACT
The current study examines wine tourists’ perspectives of a winery environment, referred to as the winescape. Specifically, it explores wine tourists’ perceptions of winescape attributes for their impacts on attitude and intention toward a winery. Pen-and-paper and online surveys examined 1,477 wine tourists across five winery-specific studies in Australia, the USA and Taiwan, China. Seven winescape attributes, namely, setting, atmospherics, wine quality, wine value, complementary product, signage and service staff demonstrated reliability and validity. Structural equation modelling suggested that service staff and the complementary product were key predictors of wine tourist attitude, which in turn, predicted their intentions to revisit and recommend wineries. Theoretically, the research model validates applicability of the winescape attributes and offers an empirical framework which explains wine tourists’ decision-making in ‘new world’ winescapes. Managerially, it gives practitioners direction in enhancing key winescape attributes which influence favorable winery experiences in ‘new world’ winescapes.
