The effects of the winery visitor experience on emotions, satisfaction and on post-visit behaviour intentions

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to explore the impact of the experience of a winery visit to the visitor’s emotions and the effect of these emotions on visitor’s intention to revisit and recommend a winery as consequences of visitor satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a multi approach of customer experience, suggesting that visitors base their experience perception on the servicescape attributes, other visitors’ suitable behaviours and their own yearn for cognitive learning and fun. Path analysis is adopted to measure the impact of these constructs on visitor’s emotions and the role of these emotions in predicting visitor’s satisfaction and behavioural intentions. Data are collected through a self-administered highly structured questionnaire, self-completed by respondents at each winery. A total of 615 usable responses are obtained from eight wineries. Findings The results indicate that emotions are arisen – in a context of wine tourism – as a result of visitor’s evaluation of winery environment (especially Atmospherics, Signage and Facilities), other visitors’ appropriate behaviour and visitor’s desire to learn something new and to have fun during the winery experience. Also, it is revealed that visitor’s emotions positively impact on his/her satisfaction, which in turn seems to be a significant predictor of his/her intention to revisit the winery and give positive word-of-mouth. Research limitations/implications The findings broaden the knowledge on visitor’s winery experience and its impact on visitor’s satisfaction and future behavioural intentions. However, because the study focuses only on winery visitors in Greece, the research results may lack generalizability. The application of the study to other wineries would allow for wider generalisations to be made from the results obtained. Practical implications The overall findings may have significant implications for wine tourism industries. Also, it might be beneficial for wineries in their effort to provide a more valuable experience to wine tourists and in increasing wine tourists’ loyalty. Originality/value The paper’s originality lies in providing information to clarify the relationships between the constructs of experience, visitor’s emotions, satisfaction and future behavioural intentions in a winery setting. Also, this study provides new and practical insights of winery experience in the Greek context, an area where very limited research has been conducted. Finally, this is one of the few studies that focus on more than two servicescape elements and their impact on visitor’s emotions.