Small and Medium Firms' innovation strategies in the Italian wine tourism

Wine tourism is a niche tourism market whose principal feature is given by the wine and the pleasure of discovering the wine-production territories. According to the European Network of Wine Cities (2006), wine-tourism involves all tourist and "spare time" activities dedicated to the discovery and to the culture and knowledge of the wine and its territory. From the tourist point of view, in fact, wine may constitute the main attraction of a territory or an asset that contributes, together with the other resources and attractions, as well as with other typical products. This offer can concern the visiting of vineyards, wineries, the organization of wine festivals and shows for which grape wine tasting and/or experiencing the attributes of a grape wine region are the prime motivating factors for visitors. As such, wine tourism has been recognized as providing potential opportunities for wine producers to add value to their existing market offerings. In many countries, the organizational formula of wine tourism has been the definition of itineraries (wine routes), which mainly involve areas of wine production and offers to the tourists the opportunity of knowing other cultural and naturalistic resources of the territories. In Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and the United States, the development of wine tourism has, for example, experimented great impact on the socio-economic development of rural areas in terms of both employment and revenue. Italy is one of the largest producer of wine in the world, the third market for wine consumption and the second for exports. The wine sector is composed of over 60,000 small wine firms, that are generally suppliers of branded wine producers and GDO. This represents a loss of value as the direct relationships with customers are managed by other supply chain actors, very often located outside the rural area of wine production. The consolidated tradition in the production of quality wines (PDO and PGI), combined with the natural and historical beauty and the gastronomic traditions, represent a strong tourist attractor that can promote the development of wine tourism in rural areas. As emerging niche market in Italy, wine tourism is having an important development in the last years. In 2015, there have been about 10 millions of arrivals in the wineries and a turnover of 2.5 billion euros, thanks to the extraordinary number of high quality certified wines. This positive result can be associated to the different set of services provided by the wineries, specifically: the traditional services such as wine sales, and, the tourism and experiential services such as hospitality, food festivals, tasting and sensorial experience in winery and restaurant services. Given such data, this niche market could represent an important development factor for the Italian wine sector and for the destinations where the wine production is located. If properly supported by effective policy actions, wine tourism can represent an opportunity for socio-economic development of Italian wine sector and rural destinations.