Wine Tourism: Involvement and Intention of Potential Tourists to Visit California Wineries: East vs. West

This paper investigates the effects of consumers??involvement in the pre-purchase stages on their willingness to visit wineries in California. The extant theory provides support for a positive linkage between product involvement, consumption, and propensity to visit a wine destination. Using a simple yet elegant model, and focusing on only two pre-purchase stages (cognitive and affective) of consumer behavior, the findings suggest while Asian consumers do not yet seem enthusiastic about wine consumption, they do seem to engage in information search prior to drinking wine. Also, California wineries need differentiated marketing strategies to attract wine tourists from Asia and Europe.