Food & Wine Tourism – What Influences Visitor Decision Making?

Feeling very lucky to be living in Western Australia I recently decided to take advantage of our State-wide freedom and booked a family getaway to Yallingup in the Margaret River Wine Region.

On our getaway, we visited local winery Swings and Roundabouts and whilst contemplating writing my next blog it got me wondering why exactly did we choose this particular winery? Well as an ex-winemaker I can tell you it wasn’t for the wine and if I’m honest it wasn’t for the food either with a pretty standard menu of pizzas, chips and few other items. So if food and wine aren’t influencing visitor decision making in a wine region then what exactly is???

The top three reasons that influenced our decision were:

Location – It was close to our accommodation at only a 5-minute drive away;

Family Friendly – It is an extremely kid friendly venue and with 3 young children this is super important to us as we can’t enjoy ourselves unless the kids are enjoying themselves; and

Personal Recommendation – we had not one but two personal recommendations from friends who had recently visited this winery.

It also happened to be a beautiful venue overlooking rolling green hills, vineyards and a dam. These were smart operators who had really thought about their visitors and it showed. The restaurant area incorporated a huge playground area with plenty of seating nearby to keep an eye on little ones, indoor and outdoor seating options, an amazing ‘Insta opportunity’ which is so important with the younger crowd (I’ll talk about this more below), wine, food, music and a great atmosphere!

Above: Miss eight enjoying the swings at Swings & Roundabouts otherwise known as the ‘Insta Opportunity’.

Within 2 minutes of arriving Master seven had made a friend to kick his footy with on the expansive grassed areas, Miss eight was fascinated with the Insta attraction – adult swings and Master two well he was just there for the snaaaaaaaacks!!

The food arrived quickly, was a good serving size and good quality for the price point while the wine was cheap and cheerful. All this culminating into a solid 5 minutes of peace for my husband and I to enjoy a glass of wine before someone needed the toilet or hurt themselves and an experience that we would highly recommend to all our friends visiting the area.

This is just one example of the decision-making tourists make when visiting any region and admittedly, my family heavily influenced my decision, however I have to say this venue really has a winning recipe for attracting all types of visitor segments. Looking around I could see groups of ‘girls trip’ types, boys weekenders, couples, families and groups of all ages enjoying the offering.

The take home message being if you want to influence the visitor decision to choose your venue then you must really think about who your target market is and what they want. How can you create an easy, inviting experience that they will then personally recommend? And perhaps contrary to popular belief food & wine tourism is not all about food & wine you must consider the whole visitor experience.

My Top three predictions for food & wine tourism:

1. EXPERIENCE It’s all about the experience including getting that perfect Insta shot! In 2020, you can’t ignore social media and a huge part of social media is the images. Getting the perfect shot is everything these days particularly for the younger crowd and if it’s not on Insta did it even happen?? So how can you create an Insta worthy opportunity for your visitors even if you don’t buy into social media?

Above: An example of a simple, low cost insta opportunity at the General Store in Yallingup, WA.

2. FOOD The rise and rise of food tourism. Many a tourism region has started with wine as the anchor and hero attractor. As these regions have evolved, we have seen the focus move towards food with restaurants, cafes, cheese, chocolate, premium meat products, ice cream, yoghurt, artisan bakeries and many other food based businesses popping up in traditional wine regions. I predict this trend will continue along with further development of food tourism experiences such as cooking classes, agri-tourism experiences and authentic ways to connect with food production.

Above: Ice cream = happy 😁

3. BEVERAGES Low alcohol and no alcohol beverages whether it be wine, beer, cider, coffee or kombucha watch this space and move over wine! We are a health conscience nation and our younger generations are just not as interested in alcoholic beverages as previous generations. They don’t want to drink the calories or waste their time with a hangover – kudos to them I personally can’t think of a better way to spend my hard earned gym calories than a beautiful glass of wine but I digress. Low and no alcohol beverages are on the up and it would be wise to include some options in your offering.