ABSTRACT
According to the European Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection, more than one in four deaths caused by traffic accidents on EU roads — approximately 10,000 every year — are linked to drink driving (Anderson and Baumberg 2006: 3). Hence, this problem not only involves personal drama but also imposes a huge burden on our economy with far-reaching micro- and macroeconomic consequences (Babor et al., 2010: 165). To solve this problem, European governments have adopted tough drink driving policies over the last 20 years (Edwards et al., 1994: 55; Babor et al., 2010: 168). Moreover, regarding food and wine events, it seems that the fear of accidents, strict police controls, possible large fines for drink driving, as well as the fear of the revocation of one’s driver’s license, prevent prospective customers from visiting such activities. Consequently, food and wine events, especially in rural areas, appear to suffer from tougher legislation and the fears mentioned above. Hence, it seems that the drink driving problem substantially decreases the market potential of food and wine events and that, therefore, food and wine researchers as well as event managers are challenged to seek solutions.
