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The purpose of this study is to examine consumers’ relationship with wine during the COVID-19 crisis and associated implications for hospitality and tourism operations. Despite the severe impacts of COVID-19’s aftermath, including recent reports of a global decrease in wine consumption, academic research has neglected this domain. Consequently, there is an empirical and conceptual vacuum that the present research will address.

The study proposes a comparative investigation, with data gathered from 241 Italian and Spanish wine consumers through an online questionnaire.

Overall, the analysis reveals marginal changes in wine consumption during the crisis. At the same time, however, an increased interest for more wine events and an organised wine route, for learning more about wines and new wine harvests, and the influence of comments from others in enhancing one’s wine knowledge during the crisis is also identified.

The study is one of the few studies conducted to date that seek to ascertain the extent to which wine consumers’ involvement with wine has changed during a major crisis. The findings and subsequent analysis contribute to the development of five distinctive dimensions associated with consumers: the more involved/interested, the inquisitive/explorer, the non-traditional/avid, the frugal/less involved and the conservative/avid. The first two dimensions, which are supported by mean scores close to the level of agreement (mean = 4.0) have a number of practical and conceptual implications. In addition, a conceptual framework illustrating various conceptual/empirical relationships is proposed.

This paper aims to understand how food and drink producers have combined food and culture into the tourism experience through an explorative analysis on a sample of Italian enterprises.

The paper opted for a two-stage analysis. An explorative study has been carried out to identify producers with this offering and assess their main characteristics. A direct survey has been carried out to acquire detailed information about the profile of the enterprises as well as to assess motivations, results achieved and satisfaction concerning the experience offered.

Food can be alternatively the main subject (e.g. food museums) or be combined with other cultural expression (e.g. music festivals inside wineries), and the choice appears to mainly depend on personal interest of entrepreneurs. The production of the food tourism experience not only increases the tourist attractiveness but also generates other benefits, such as improving brand visibility and relationship with local stakeholders.

Because of the sample chosen, the research results may lack generalizability. Furthermore, it may be important to deeply investigate some issues that remain partly unanswered.

The paper sheds lights on characteristics of tourism experiences combining food and culture and hopefully aims at increasing awareness among producers about their current attractiveness.

This paper tries to contribute to improve the knowledge on a topic of current interest such as tourism experiences combining food and culture.

This contribution explores the demand side of gastronomy tourism, in particular the characteristics of travellers who are driven by their gastronomic interest. Such ‘passionate tourists’ gain a number of experiences from gastronomy within their holidays, and these ranges from enjoyment to socialization and learning. Regardless of their motivation to travel, gastronomic experiences are often taken in conjunction with other activities available (especially those related to culture). Practical implications for destinations include improvements in thematic offerings (both in terms of variety and authenticity), cross-marketing activities and promotion. In doing so, they need to become aware of the diversity of consumption patterns of these tourists.

Wine tourism literature still falls behind other streams of research in its ability to assess phenomena associated with the implementation of digital practices to address strategic challenges. Moreover, studies on social media in tourism and hospitality prioritize the relationship between tourists’ behavioural aspects and technology. Relationships, experiences and timely responses on the digital environment are particularly important, taken the ‘new normal’ which COVID-19 necessitates. Within this framework, the present case study explores the role of social media (Facebook in specific) in the effort of Cretan wineries to respond to new encounters, as well as the importance, if any, of collaborative practices for developing online strategies of individual businesses. Findings help us identify (a) the role of the winescape studies in exploring the digital environment and (b) the main communication priorities of wineries as expressed through social media during the pandemic crisis.