Resumen de Motivations for participating in Wine Tourism Activities- the case of Tourists on the ThraceWine Route in Turkey

Gurkan Akdag, Seda Oyan, Elisabeth Kastenholz

• Wine tourism is developing in parallel with the increasing number of individuals who take part in alternative tourism and is frequently approached within specialty tourism in the academic literature, being growing worldwide. While countries like Portugal, Spain, and particularly Italy and France, are already recognized wine tourism destinations, in recent years, countries like Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey have also increasingly invested in this specialty tourism form. One crucial factor of success of wine tourism is the development of wine routes presenting appealing and diversified experiences around the theme of wine production and culture. Co-creation of these experiences is also an important topic, since the active participation of wine tourists has been suggested as highly involving and memorable for these thematic and local-resource-based rural tourism experiences (Kastenholz, Carneiro & Marques, 2012). Especially, activities that permit interested tourists to taste different sorts of wine, even engage with the wine harvesting and/ or production process and wine routes that provide outstanding tourist attractions catch the attraction of wine enthusiasts all over the world. Today, the growing number and diversity of wine routes, especially those in the Eastern Europe, is attracting many individuals who want to engage in a variety of wine tourism experiences. Wine tourism development that especially targets tourists with high disposable income and willingness to spend on special wine tourism experiences and on wine purchase is considered a most interesting strategy, enhancing the region’s economic development stimulating both the tourism and wine production sector.