Do Winery Members and Retail Customers Place the Same Importance on Winery Service Attributes?

ABSTRACT

This research study explores the factors that help distinguish between the winery visitors purchasing wine at the winery compared to non-buyers. Furthermore, the study investigates the factors that affect the conversion from winery visitors to wine club membership. The study’s sample consists of internal data collected from a winery located in Sonoma, California. The winery is a boutique and high-end winery producing around 12,000 cases per year. The winery’s primary revenue source is direct to consumer sales such as sales at the winery tasting room and wine club membership. The results of the study reveal that certain winery service quality attributes such as wine tastings and winery tours are the major factors that discern non-buyers from buyer groups. In addition, the quality of winery tasting and winery tour is the key contributor that helps winery visitors to join the wine club membership at the winery.

KEYWORDS:

• Wine tourism
• wine tourists
• wine club membership
• customer loyalty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).