The wine tourist in the city: the case study of Barcelona

In the last decade, the wine tourism sector has undergone an impressive expansion becoming the core for of several wine regions' destination brands and attracting thousands of travelers every year (Getz, 2000; Mitchell & Hall, 2004). Indeed, wine became an important reason for travel (Garibaldi et al, 2017). The great differentiation of the supply has further led wine tourism to develop synergies with other sectors such as food (Getz et al., 2014), attracting a wider range of customers and extending the definition of ‘wine tourist' also to people not having a specific knowledge of wine and winemaking (Sigala and Robinson, 2019). This explanatory study investigates a recent model of wine and gastronomy tourism experiences offered in the city of Barcelona, trying to define the profile of the customer. Results revealed wine tourist to be attracted by gastronomy and wine related experiences while traveling to major city destinations and highlighted the presence of different market segments who are looking to experience wine in different ways, also combined with local gastronomy. Information collected can be useful to actors of the tourism sector and represent a starting point for future investigations of similar models in different regions.