| The creation of a successful wine tourism destination involves the addition of value to the wine tourism product by wine tourism businesses and related wine industry agencies. This research project presents a value chain assessment of wine tourism development in the Okanagan-Similkameen Valley. The components of the wine tourism value chain are destination attractions, services, festivals and events, transportation, wholesale packaging, retail distribution, protection of the natural and cultural resource base, marketing and customer service.; Research findings emanating from this project suggest that there are a number of support agencies currently adding only a limited amount of value to the wine tourism product in the Okanagan-Similkameen Valley. A much smaller number of support agencies are adding substantial value to the wine tourism value chain. For the most part, support agencies primarily add value to either the wine industry (e.g. BC Wine Institute) or the tourism industry (e.g. the TOTA), but not both. The research findings indicate that one of the major problems with the wine tourism industry in the Okanagan-Similkameen Valley is the failure of support agencies to create appropriate networks between stakeholders so that they can collaborate on programs to achieve common goals. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
