Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2009

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management

Major Professor

Rachel Chen

Abstract

Scant winery tourism research has been conducted focusing on the Southeastern United States. Furthermore, most winery tourism studies focusing on festivals limited the study to single off-site locations. Little research has been done focusing on multiple festivals and those wineries hosting on-site festivals specifically located in the Southeastern United States. The scope of this study was to employ multiple winery festivals to more fully understand winery tourists' motivations by examining push factors and pull factors of the attendees for on-site winery festivals located in the Southeastern United States. It is well accepted in marketing literature that in order to be successful, companies need to understand what drives consumers. These findings could prove important by channeling efforts for winery owners on those participants' needs and potentially increase the participant body, positively impacting the winery's economic growth as well as that of the surrounding region.The survey instrument consisted of approximately 80 questions divided into six sections. The first section of the survey was developed to measure the motivations of attending winery festivals, focusing on push motivators. The second section of the survey measured the importance of attending winery festival attributes (pull motivators). The third section was developed to measure the destination attribute performance; the fourth section, to measure visitor satisfaction with the on-site winery festival; the fifth section, to measure repatronage intentions of visitors; and the sixth section, to measure demographic information. Destination attributes offered by the venue pull the tourist to the location, while the psychologically-based push motivators fuel desire to attend. K-Means Cluster analysis was performed to assess potential market segments. The study also utilized a gap measure between guest expectations and what the venue delivered by way of the attributes of the destination.The overall effect of destination performance on attendees' satisfaction and repatronage intentions was measured. The reliability scores produced from analysis of the motivation survey questions rated .860 indicating a relationship exists between the reliability of the instrument and the data obtained. The findings contribute to the stream of academic tourism literature supporting the push-pull framework and its importance in determining motivations and participation.

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