Last week, Wine GB released its inaugural UK Wine Tourism Market Report, which showed that the number of visitors to the UK's vineyards and wineries has surged by as much as 55% in two years.
The report also details key activities launched by the British Wine Council (Wine GB) to support the region, as well as seven policy changes calling for the new government to promote development.
The report, the first of three publications, shows how England and Wales wines are growing rapidly and sustainably. According to Wine GB, there are currently around 300 vineyards and wineries in the UK that are actively involved in wine tourism (although spirits are the UK's strength...... ), which is expected to see significant growth and investment in this area in the coming years. With 1.5 million visitors to vineyards and wineries in 2023, an increase of 55% compared to 2022, wine tourism now accounts for a quarter of the total revenue of vineyards and wineries. According to research by VisitBritain, if the right changes are made, the number of visitors could rise to 16 million!
Wine GB calls on the next government to introduce new policies to support wine tourism, such as introducing winery exemptions and a fairer tax system, providing better financial support for tourism promotion, speeding up the connection between domestic and international tourism, improving the planning system of British wineries, supporting industry training, improving rural infrastructure and providing convenient road signs.
Wine GB also proposes a more professional industry initiative to promote wine tourism through four main activities:
1. Convene people engaged in wine tourism in the industry through the establishment of a wine tourism working group;
2. Communicate on key issues and form a unified voice;
3. Help raise the profile of the wine tourism industry by joining the tourism alliance;
4. Provide industry education to our members through workshops with Knight Frank and VisitBritain.
In August, Wine GB will also launch the UK Wine Tourism Guide, showcasing best practice across the industry in all areas of wine tourism, including regional groups and local partnerships, cultural experiences, tourism and hospitality.
Speaking at the launch of the UK Wine Tourism Market Report, Nicola Bates, CEO of Wine GB, said: "Last week, in our Growth Manifesto, we identified the policies that the next government should adopt to accelerate the growth of our industry. Today's highlighted report details the immense value and importance of wine tourism to our industry. This is our call to action to reform taxes, planning, marketing and other areas to attract 16 million potential inbound tourists. To these potential customers, as well as millions of customers in our domestic market, we would say: stay, try and buy. ”
At the same time, we can also take this opportunity to look at the Chinese winery tourism market.
After seeing the "British Wine Tourism Market Report" released by the British Wine Association (Wine GB), the editorial team of our official account also warmly discussed the development of winery tourism in China's wine industry, and had a brief telephone interview with industry insiders.
Mr. Zhu Jianping, the head of Ningxia Road Wine Society Cultural Tourism Co., Ltd., is one of the few tourism enterprises in China specializing in winery tours, told Wine that since its establishment in 2021, the company has been focusing on the winery tour market, and has followed the development of the production area to continuously develop new winery tour routes and projects (such as Yunnan production area and the upcoming Shandong production area route).
In Mr. Zhu's eyes, the winery tour in Ningxia is at the forefront of China in terms of enterprise operation and planning of the production area government, and the tourism economic results achieved are also more significant—Ningxia Helan Mountain Wine Area, as a representative wine producing area in China, is also an early production area that pays attention to and attaches importance to the integrated development of "wine + cultural tourism". We learned from Wang Jibin, deputy director of Yinchuan Wine Industry Development Service Center, that in 2023, a total of 1.2 million tourists will be received, with a comprehensive income of 30 billion yuan, which has effectively driven the continuous growth of the comprehensive benefits of the wine industry.
At present, Yinchuan City has been assessed as 2A and above tourist attractions and open to the public to receive tourists 10 wineries, including Zhihui Yuanshi Winery such as 3 4A attractions, in addition to more than 30 wineries have the potential and space for the development of vineyards and wine visits, tasting, accommodation, catering and other tourism, Zhenbeibao Town, Minning Town 2 towns and Zhenbeibao Village, Haoyuan Village, Yuanlong Village 3 villages were rated as national rural tourism key towns (villages).
In addition to the innate advantages of natural resources, it is more important to the acquired operation of tourism resources - the production area has actively attracted investment, absorbed cultural media in the industry, Internet celebrity MCN institutions, etc., excavated the connotation of cultural tourism in the production area, and launched a number of routes into the winery's characteristic production areas, such as the Yellow River Suji launched the winery search tour at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain, the star hometown launched the starry sky winery tour, the Zuimei Helan line launched by Chengdu Meipan, and the owner's dinner and picking and self-brewing project of the Road Wine Society, all of which have been popular in the market. In addition, the production area also provides a full range of support for online celebrities to check in and visit the winery, including accommodation reception, winery connection, live broadcast room with goods and other services, leveraging the power of Internet celebrities to promote the production area and products.
This hand-drawn drawing is provided by the team of Road Wine Club 丨 Commercial use is prohibited
Chen Jingjing's main business is not tourism, but professional training and wine distribution, but by chance, as early as 2015, he began to develop winery tourism as a side business, and never thought that it would become bigger and bigger, becoming a brand project of his own, and closely related to the growth of Ningxia production area. Chen Jingjing has the impression that in recent years, the successive hits of two film and television dramas related to Ningxia, agriculture and wine, "Mountains and Seas" and "Hometown of the Stars", have greatly promoted the winery tourism industry, especially after the launch of "The Hometown of the Stars" in May this year, the number of summer bookings has increased significantly. Of course, for her, there are more types of wine merchants in her hands, and she is also actively expanding the market to wine consumers and enthusiasts.
In addition to leisure tourism, business tourism is also the highlight of Ningxia's Helan Mountain production area. The 2023 Helan Eastern Foothill Wine Distributors Conference, supported by the government, not only attracted thousands of wine distributors from all over the country to Ningxia to negotiate business, but also gave them a rare opportunity to visit wineries in Ningxia.
Speaking of the current lack of winery tourism, Mr. Zhu said frankly that the current tourism supporting infrastructure in major domestic production areas is uneven, imperfect is still a relatively common phenomenon, in addition, the promotion of production areas is still not much focus on tourism, more is still the traditional introduction of well-known winery wine enterprises and products. Ningxia production area, whether it is the government or the private investment, after obtaining positive economic benefits, are rapidly increasing investment, such as the Qingtongxia Pigeon Mountain Wine Cultural Tourism Town is about to be completed, in order to better serve the winery tourists. The Turandot wine town in the Yinchuan production area has begun to take shape, which can provide better services for winery tourists.
Editor's note: In the United Kingdom, where the wine industry is not developed, it can also win as many as 1.5 million people with its characteristic wine tourism, which is really enviable!
In the Chinese wine market, the business model of the winery is still relatively simple, and the winery tour has not yet become a real fashion, which needs to be vigorously promoted by our winery owners, the government of the producing area and the industry association, and on the other hand, the tourism practitioners need to realize the huge business opportunities in the future of the new blue ocean market of winery tourism, attach importance to the development of the market, and jointly become bigger and stronger.