Online Wine Tastings around the World
Winetourism.com presents the Global Report – “Online Wine Tastings around the World”. The report is based on a survey that was conducted in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Gergely Szolnoki at Geisenheim University. The survey was held in January 2021, answers for the questionnaire were collected from 1,423 wineries.
The aim of the research is to evaluate the impact of the global pandemic on online wine tastings and how wineries changed their approach towards wine tourism since the pandemic started and if the concept of online wine tastings will continue and grow after a Covid-19 period.
Webinar on 17th of March
We hosted the Livestream webinar on the 17th of March, where Niklas Ridoff, project manager of WineTourism.com, and Prof. Dr. Gergely Szolnoki from the university of Geisenheim discussed the findings of the survey.
Research Partner:
We thank all the participants for the engagement and the insights shared during the webinar.
If you missed the date, you can still watch the recording of the webinar here.
Or, download the full report to have closer look at the findings.
Press Material
Download the presentation of the report
Key Findings
- Covid-19, the accelerator of digitalization in all sectors, also caused the rapid proliferation of OWTs. This modern type of wine tasting was almost unknown before the pandemic.
- Size matters – the larger the winery, the more OWTs have been organized. However, results show that larger wineries had the highest decrease in terms of winery visitors.
- The reason for offering OWTs is very versatile and differs mainly by the size of the winery.
- Zoom as an online platform for wine tastings rocks the wine world. This can be explained by the fact that Zoom is a user-friendly platform, which includes many useful features moderators can use during the tasting. In addition, no registration or download is necessary to start Zoom as a participant.
Sample Analysis
- A total of 1,423 wineries from over 42 countries participated in the survey and 87 % of the wineries surveyed come from Old World countries.
- 81% of the wineries surveyed are from one of the seven major wine countries. Out of which, Germany and Italy together represent 47% of all participating wineries.
- More than half of the participants (57%) run small to medium-sized wineries (up to 20 hectares).
Share of wineries conducting online wine tastings
Reasons for offering online wine tastings and tours
Success and Profitability of Online Wine Tastings
- OWT is an excellent way to counter decreasing sales, and it seems to be a profitable business. More than half of the wineries that hosted online wine tastings rated them as profitable or very profitable.
- Higher profitability goes hand in hand with a higher number of conducted tastings and participants, but also the length of the tasting.
- The profile of a profitable winery: 1) leverages more sales and marketing channels 2) tends to hold tastings for larger groups 3) focus on B2C 4) host longer tastings (over 60 minutes rather than under 60 minutes).
The success of online wine tastings
Profitability of online wine tastings
The Main Target Group and Number of Online Wine Tastings
- Germany hosted by far the most B2C OWTs, while a higher share of B2B tasting could be stated in other countries.
- Wineries are cautious about the number of OWTs. Every second winery offered less than 6, and one-third between 6-20 OWTs.
- German wineries offered OWTs to consumers, while other wineries used this tool also for business customers.
Willingness to Continue Offering Online Wine Tastings
- OWT is here to stay – the majority of wineries dealt with OWTs in the last year, plan to offer OWTs in the future.
- Since many wineries were able to achieve their goals with online wine tastings – and 50% even make profits through them – it is not surprising that most of them want to continue offering online wine tastings.
Willingness to continue online wine tastings
Download the full report from here.
The Research Team
Calle Nilsson
calle.nilsson@winetourism.com
Niklas Ridoff
niklas.ridoff@winetourism.com
Prof. Dr. Gergely Szolnoki
Gergely.Szolnoki@hs-gm.de
Maximilian Tafel
Maximilian.Tafel@hs-gm.de
Marvin Blaß
Marvin.Blass@hs-gm.de
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