Exploring visitor perspectives on critical success factors for wine tourism: a qualitative approach

This paper explores the critical success factors in wine tourism, with a focus on small, family-owned wineries in Bulgaria, and aims to identify differences compared to more established wine tourism destinations. Using a netnographic approach, which involves qualitative analysis of user-generated content from TripAdvisor reviews, the study identifies seven critical success factors for wine tourism development, categorized as Satisfiers and Dissatisfiers. The key satisfiers include factors such as the 'people' dimension, wine quality, the winery tour experience, and the attributes of the setting and the winery itself. On the other hand, inadequate service, subpar wine quality, and poor accessibility were the main dissatisfiers. The study's novelty lies in its focus on an emerging wine tourism destination and its application of user-generated content for qualitative analysis – both of which are underrepresented in existing literature. From a practical standpoint, the study offers valuable insights for tourism managers and winery owners, highlighting ways to enhance the visitor experience by balancing core offerings with gradual innovation. The paper concludes by suggesting directions for future research, particularly the need for longitudinal studies to monitor the evolution of critical success factors and cross-cultural comparisons to assess the influence of local contexts.