The phenomena of design influence on consumer involvement and image formation in a winery tourism setting

People are spending an ever-greater time living in environments built by design professionals. Unlike design applications that have become standardized, composite interiors in "industrial tourism" such as a winery, must combine standards to create a new hybrid design. Seven designers were asked to select winery photographs based on their overall aesthetic design attributes to be used as generating markers for a winery tourism sight in the study.

As wineries struggle to survive in a competitive market environment, vertical integration of products and services becomes vital to their continued success. Alternative profit centers such as tourism is popular within the industry, however little research has been conducted to date that has explored consumer preferences for aesthetic design aspects of a winery utilized as a marketing tool.

Participants in the study were drawn from a global pool of potential respondents on the Internet. This population constitutes a stratified random sample of wine consumers who located and responded to the survey during the three-week posting period. The completed self-report questionnaire [n = 1 22] was submitted electronically and downloaded into an Access database for MANOVA, ANOVA, and correlation statistical analysis.

Results indicated that winery aesthetic preferences of the sample were for lawn approaches, courtyard or walkway grounds, and cellar interiors. There were no significant differences in variance between demographics and psychographics. Analysis for involvement and image showed a positive correlation for both groups.