Monitor: Amy Lillard
Time: 10:00 – 10:45 am
Roundtable Contributors: Wink Lorch, Ricardo Gomes and Anthony Swift
Theme: The new world of wine tourism: the pros and cons of using social media as a tool for attracting wine tourism
Questions to be Addressed:
- How, in your individual experiences, can social media impact wine tourism?
- You each have businesses that promote wine tourism, through guided tours, planned itineraries or self-guided wine tours, how has social media impacted your business? What tools do you use the most? Blog, Facebook, Twitterm others? Do you think these tools have increased exposure and in return business for you?
- What are the pitfalls of using social media, if any?
- Now let’s look at it from a winery’s point of view: How can a winery use social media improve/attract tourism? What are the benefits? What are the draw backs?
- In the same respect how can a blogger affect winery tourism?
- Country specific issues: We all know that California has a highly developed wine tourism industry, in Europe depending on the region, the tourist experience can be very different, what cultural issues need to be kept in mind when writing about a specific region? Does a blogger need to change his/her formula for writing about a winery from California as opposed to one in Burgundy? How can a blogger better prepare their readers for their visit? What is the responsibility of the blogger in this case?
