MU Faculty presents at Culinary and Wine Tourism Conference

An interdepartmental trio of faculty members recently participated in the Culinary and Wine Tourism conference in Vienna, organized by The Institute for Tourism Management at the FHWien University of Applied Sciences in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tourismuswissenschaft e.V. (DGT) and the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems at held at the FH Wien.

Christian Weismayer of the Department of Applied Statistics and Economics and Lidija Lalicic of the Department of Tourism and Service Management presented a paper entitled ‘Profiling Wine Tourist Involvement Segments: A Case Study of Central Burgenland’. This paper illustrates how wine tourists can be segmented according to their involvement level. By making use of an online survey among wine tourists in Central Burgenland in Austria, wine involvement items and linked motivational factors were observed. Overall this study provides ideas on how marketers can develop tailor-made wine tourism experiences for different target markets.

Hannes Antonschmidt of the Department of Tourism and Service Management also attended the conference the FH Wien; along with FH colleagues and MU's Dagmar Lund-Durlacher, he is conducting a research project assessing the determinants for "Sustainable Consumption on Holidays" ("Nachhaltige Ernährung im Urlaub"), which will involve both a survey of travelers and field research of the situation in tourist destinations.

''It was a vibrant conference where practitioners, wine makers, marketers and researchers discussed the topics about the emerging field of wine and gastronomy tourism,'' says Lidija. ''And of course they were able to taste the best Austrian wines and delicacies too!''  

L-R: Hannes Antonschmidt, Lidija Lalicic, Christian Weismayer