Gastronomy and Wine in the Alentejo Portuguese Region: Motivation and Satisfaction of Turists from Évora

Food and winemaking are a recognized tangible and intangible culturalheritage of Portugal. From the relationshipbetween these twocomponents, astrategic product emerged with a considerable potential for tourism industry, which is notignored bymany of tourism organizations. This chapter intends to analyze food and winemaking from atourism demand perspective. Particularly, this study describes visitors’ profi le, including, their motivations, their knowledgeabout theenological and gastronomicresourcesand the degreeof satisfaction. A total of 308 questionnaires were collected between February and May of 2012, from the visitors that visited the historic center of Évora (Alentejo-Portugal). Results reveal a visitor profi le associated with regional cuisine and wine products from Portugal. Moreover, visitors’ evidenced a high level of knowledge regarding the Portuguese cuisine and regional wines; although this not matches with their primary motivation for visit the city of Évora

Wine tourism and regional development

The characteristics of wine tourism make it absolutely compatible with the predominantly rural areas looking for sustainable development. One of the major problems associated with wine tourism, however, comes from the difficulty the wine-producing industry has in conceiving of tourism as a product likely to generate added value. Most wine producers still do not have a clear perception of the main principles of tourism, which would allow them to offer a quality product and understand the way this industry (so different from the wine industry) works. This fact makes it difficult to create an interlinked network between wine and tour- ism, and consequently to the wine tourism assertion. This chapter aims at obtaining greater insight into the relationship between wine tourism and regional develop- ment. For that an analysis was developed that puts in evidence the main reasons that may block the leverage of regional development through wine tourism. Wine routes are presented here as one of the most efficient ways to avoid these blockages.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio