Combining Wine production and Tourism. The Aeolian Islands

Wine is a key element in the development and promotion of tourism. The purpose of this paper is to investigate, from the perspective of the growers, how a specific area - Aeolian Islands - is organized in order to develop wine tourism. The methodology employed for this study consisted of a combination of surveys, interviews and field observations with the suppliers. Results indicate that the implementation of wine tourism will be a significant challenge as the respondents report a lack of marketing and tourism management skill and knowledge. Most are small sized enterprises which means they have little man power available to devote to developing wine tourism; and there is a low level of reported cooperation amongst stakeholders.