The use of wine tourism as a possibility of the marketing with wine cooperatives

Due to increasing national and international competition the German wine industry has to develop new alternatives. One of these alternatives is wine tourism. To exploit this potential market could also be an opportunity for German wine cooperatives. The study at hand illuminates the new literary phenomenon of wine tourism in regards to how deeply wine cooperatives are involved in this topic and which goals they are perusing. This research paper also investigates to what extend the members of wine cooperatives involve themselves as multipliers in the operation of wine tourism activities. Furthermore, the definatory concept of wine tourism will be analyzed more closely. It was discovered that wine cooperatives incorporate wine tourism events into their corporate structure, just as wineries do. In contrast to wineries, wine cooperatives do not do so to generate value added, but simply use it as a marketing tool. It should be differentiated between cooperatives with increasingly high indirect sales and cooperatives that are pursuing sales promotion. They later think of this communication tool as direct communication in order to exploit new target groups. When looking at the implementation of wine tourism activities, it was discovered that there is still potential for more innovative ideas. The managing directors also seem to underestimate the possibility of including cooperative members during the implementation and communication. Additionally, the bonding possibilities within the cooperative through wine tourism activities are often overlooked. Regarding the definition it is to retain that, wine tourism always-depending on the perspective-adopts the viewpoint of either provider or consumer. The definition concepts have in common that regardless of benefit, consumption or direct marketing, it is the wine related experience and a change in location that have to be main focal point.