Introduction
Wine tourism is organized around travel. It involves tasting, appreciating, and purchasing wine. Taking of wine is deeply entrenched in local cultures of people around. People go visit wineries and taste wines and while at they can sample the local food cuisines. They also get a chance to visit attractive sites in those particular regions. Wine tourism has many advantages for instance it attracts more numbers of tourists, other businesses develop alongside the wineries to cater for the visitors. We have various wine tourists.
Wine in France
Wine has been made in France for generations. But it is not until the 1980s that France developed because they saw the need in making wine accessible to more people. They also saw the need to make it understandable. (Phillips 2000) Thus winemakers and the organizations concerned with tourism joined hands and developed activities molded on the theme of wine. Some wineries or cellars are small and the owners may charge those who do not purchase the wine for tasting. In come cellars, tasters can access and taste the wine free of charge. In France, large producers concentrate on the wineries at a professional level. The wineries are major tourist attraction sites.
However, France is facing stiff competition from other wine-making countries. The use of wine in France has been on the decline. Nevertheless, the interest in wine has been raised due to many health advantages associated with wine. Selling and advertising wine to the end-users has revolutionized wine the wine industry which has also helped in the tourism sector (Hall 2000)
Wine tourism
Wine tourism in France has been embraced due to its economic benefits. This has led to the many wine-makers creating many products to attract tourists. Wine tourism-related attractions cut across family-owned attractions to big organized visitor attractions. The organized attractions include festivals and even wine museums. The events are also highlighted to attract more visitors by giving then the date events and the organized activities. Wine tourism has led to the creation of job opportunities for many people in France. We have cellar owners who depend on them for their livelihood. They make money when tasters come and buy wine from them. Come off the tasters may even become regular customers thus ensuring a steady supply of incomes for the people involved.
Economic profit
The government also gets revenue from the many visitors who come. They stay in hotels and this creates an income for the hotel owners. The industry attracts many tourists who not only come to see the wineries by end up shopping here for various products. This is means that when they shop here they tell their friends where they bought the products and this means more visitors will come to visit the country. Wine is the most bought product across cross-border shopping (Carlsen 2000)
Wine tourism problems
Wine tourism faces a lot of challenges there is a lack of cooperation between tourism and the wine industry as this would. The two industries would assist each in that visitors to one would access the other industry. The other challenge is that people have yet to view wine tourism as a serious form of tourism. The wine industry also lacks an understanding of the tourism sector (Hall 2000)
Wine tourism also faces a major challenge because not all the efforts bear fruit in making the wine industry a major tourist attraction as some of the visitors do not necessarily become interested wine tasters. This means France has to diversify and promote other tourists attractions like their culture and other physical attractions.
Wine tourism is also costly which means the capital required to set up the cellars is costly. Many are not able to raise this capital and hence are limited in the resources to market their cellars (Hall 2002)
Government regulations
The French government has embarked on a major plan to improve the wine tourism industry. This has been necessitated by the competition from emerging winemakers. The government will do so through a body under the leisure and international industry. It intends to do so by improving the linkage between the key players in the tourism sector. (Trompiz 2009). The wine industry management needs to be improved to ensure the wine industry does not succumb to fierce competition. It needs to capitalize on the notion that France is the best wine destination in the world. To do this all stakeholders must be involved for maximum impact. France also needs to look at what other countries are doing for example South Africa which is doing very well in the wine sector.
The French government can also give incentives to the wine cellars to encourage them in opening and running them. When the government does so the sector will rise to greater heights. The government should also encourage wine festivals and other cultural activities. Through these activities, more people will have an opportunity to experience French wine. This could translate into more visitors get involved in sampling wines in the future.
The government has not been marketing the idea of wine tourism enough and this could explain the stiff competition faced. It has to do more to get and retain a clientele that will come and stay in the wine regions for several days. The government should promote less known wine regions through tourism fairs that are organized. It can achieve this by making known the profile of these areas; that they are as good as the well-known Burgundy or Bordeaux. They should come up with activities like marathons along the vineyards. This could be a very strategic point for attracting visitors. (Trompiz 2009)
The government should allocate more funds to support the wine tourism sector. More studies should be conducted to help in the better understanding of this sector which has for a long time been seen as an illegitimate sector (Getz 2000). When this is done more people will venture into this great industry. Wine tourism in France has a great future and everything necessary must be done to ensure it exploits this potential to the maximum.
Conclusion
Wine tourism can act as a great way of getting people to learn and appreciate each other’s culture. This is because as one visits a country to taste its wine they also get to interact with the winemakers. This offers them a good opportunity to learn about each other as they meet face to face. Through this stereotypes are demystified and people are placed in a better position where they can tolerate one another.
Bibliography
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