Tourism marketing in rural contexts – the potential of wine tourism in the Dão wine region

Wine tourism represents a particularly interesting activity that can improve the development of rural areas, especially less developed ones. Indeed, the opening of wineries to visitors is a marketing tool for increasing their direct wine sales, but it also constitutes a diversification strategy for the winery’s core business and for rural wine destinations, regarding both tourism and the overall local economy. However, to contribute to these dynamics, wineries need to conduct an integrated and sustainable marketing approach. This study researches marketing actions developed by wineries involved in wine tourism within the Dão wine region, located in the Region Centro of Portugal. Results show that wineries have difficulty promoting their tourist product and fail to establish a fruitful collaboration with other entities. The results may help identify strategies aiming at more successful management of rural wine tourism businesses and destinations.
This study is developed in the scope of the research project TWINE – PTDC/GES-GCE/32259/2017 – POCI-01-0145-FEDER-032259, funded by the ERDF through the COMPETE 2020 – Operational Programme Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI), and national funds (OPTDC/GES-GCE/32259/2017 -E), through the FCT/MCTES
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion