| Wine tourism as a form of special interest tourism is increasingly popular among tourists. During a wine trip, visitors not only explore wine and wine culture, and purchase wine from wineries, but also enjoy the sensory experience and have a pleasurable feeling. Wine-related festivals and events are one of the most popular ways to improve wine tourism experience, which produce great economic and social benefits for wine regions and destinations. For example, in France, the history of wine festival could date back to1970s, and wine festival had gradually become an indispensable celebration in the past40years. According to the statistics, merchants and vintners could generate economic revenue accounting for15%of their annual turnover during wine festival, and at the same time, it also attracted a large number of non-locals and created more job opportunities for local residents.In order to attract and keep a flow of visitors to attend wine festival, it is necessary to improve customer satisfaction and generate positive word-of-mouth. In the research field, some researchers found festivalscape as the perception of the festival setting brought about certain cognitive, emotion and physiological sensation that in turn influenced visitors’behaviors. In other words, festivalscape as a determinant factor affected visitor festival experience. Meanwhile, festival motivation also is considered to be a key determinant in the research of service environment. However, although some researchers had proven the influence of the perception of festivalscape and festival motivation on visitors’behaviors, little empirical study has constructed a comprehensive framework to analyze the relationship festival motivation, festivalscape and visitor’s behavior. Thus, the purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship festival motivation, the perception of festivalscape, satisfaction and behavioral intention and to identify factors comprising of the wine festival experience. The paper adopted the quantitative research method. Based on reviewed literature, a self-administrated questionnaire was designed. Visitors to the wine festival were chosen as the target population and211valid questionnaires were collected in2014China Dalian International Wine and Dine Festival. Data analysis was conducted by software of AMOS and SPSS. The findings of the study revealed:(1) two main festival motives:primary motivation (to taste and purchase wine, to experience wine culture, and to attend special activities) related to wine and festival and secondary motivation (to know new friend, to release pressure and to with families) related to socializing and other purposes, and three dimensions of the perception of festivalscape: wine and food, generic features and fun;(2) primary and secondary motivation has positive effect on the perception of food and wine, generic features and fun;(3) primary motivation has a positive effect on satisfaction, and in the influence of the perception of festival attributes, secondary motivation also has positively affected satisfaction;(4) the perception of wine and food, and fun has a positive impact on satisfaction, while the perception of generic features has no effect on satisfaction;(5) satisfaction positively affect behavioral intention.The findings provided some theoretical and managerial implications. From the view of theoretical implication, the study constructed an integrative framework including festival motivation, festivalscape, satisfaction and behavioral intention forming the process of wine festival experience. For a practical point of view, the study offered some suggestions for developing effective marketing strategies, products design and service that focused on visitor motivations and festival atmospherics that ultimately retain and attract new festival goers:(1) Making full use of virtual network and local newspapers expand the coverage of publicizing;(2) wine and food as the core product of the wine festival, festival organizers and managers should enrich types of wine and food. For example, except France, Spain and Italy, festival organizers also should invite other wine vintners from the New World like America, Australia, Chile or South Africa. These new wine brands not only stimulate visitors’interests but also fit to Chinese consumption habits due to the price;(3) Because visitors have stronger interest in wine culture and wine knowledge, it is important to increase interactive programs, such as wine class, wine experts with you, tasting wine.Furthermore, because of the limitations of the quantitative research, the further research would adopt qualitative method to investigate the reasons on relationship among motivations, festivalscape, satisfaction and behavioral intention and increase additional variables to refine the proposal model. In addition, some respondents come from local, which ignore non-local and oversea visitors, so the further research should large the sample size and consider cultural factor. |
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