Managing a sustainable wine tourism industry

This study is part of an on-going qualitative research project into sustainable wine tourism, looking at developments in the wine tourism industry in the Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia, and particular its sustainable development (SD). For this paper, the official Internet presence of selected wine tour operators offering vineyard-tours as well as tastings was assessed by checking home pages and related sub pages for comments relating to SD issues. The study shows that the majority of tour operators do not make any mention of SD issues on their web pages though there were some exceptions. Furthermore, the emphasis in developing SD practices within the wine tourism industry is clearly on environmental aspects though a sustainable development of tourism will require a three pronged approach of economic as well as environmental and social sustainability.