Facilitators, constraints and constraint negotiations in wine tourism : evidence from China outbound tourists to Australia

Abstract

Wine tourism is a rapidly growing niche market for the travel and tourism industry. It has become an important part of the tourism development process for some rural areas. However, due to the competition in the wine tourism market becoming intensive, the proportion of the international wine tourists, particularly from Asian countries (e.g. Chinese tourists) is expanding, which forces many wineries to attach importance to this market so as to increase their potential purchasing power (Fountain, 2014). Yet, surprisingly, the existing literature pays little attention to the demand of international visitors and the specific constraints they encounter in wine tourism. The purpose of this research is to examine the constraints and constraint negotiation process from the angle of long-haul Australian Chinese wine tourists. Essentially, the proposed conceptual framework asserts that wine tourists' participation can be influenced by facilitators, constraints and a negotiation process. This proposition is largely underpinned by a widely-accepted constraint theory and related literature on the wine tourism context. Moreover, the concept of wine tourism involvement (e.g. the difference between high and low involvement), and residential status influence are proposed to act as moderators in the relationships in the conceptual model. Wineries in Australia were chosen as the study sites. A rigorous quantitative approach was adopted for this study. In-depth interviews and a pilot test were conducted so as to develop and refine a survey instrument. Afterwards, the questionnaire of the main survey was administered in Australia from December 2015 to February, 2016. In total 503 useable responses were collected and this study used structural equation modelling (SEM) for the main survey. After the successive steps of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), the final structural model consisted of five constructs, which included Facilitator, Constraint, Negotiation, Participation (low level) and Participation (high level). The research findings of the study indicated that 15 out of 24 proposed theoretical hypotheses are supported by the empirical data. The Facilitator construct positively influences Negotiation, while Constraints negatively influence Negotiation. Facilitators positively influence Participation (low and high), while Constraints only negatively influence Participation (high). Involvement is found to moderate effects on the relationships, and wine tourists with low involvement tend to change their intention and are easily influenced. Residential status is also found to moderate the above mentioned relationships. Additionally, residential status moderates the relationships between Constraints and Negotiation. It implies that Constraints positively stimulate HMT tourists to use negotiation strategies. The present study developed a valid measurement scale for Wine Tourism Involvement and showed the significances of Residential status and Involvement in this context. By applying both facilitating and constraining aspects to investigate participation, this study contributes to the body of knowledge about constraint theory. Also, through a better understanding of constraints, wine tourists and potential wine tourists will be better placed to use negotiating strategies in order to address obstacles. The satisfactory facilitator-constraint-negotiation model provided by this study serves as a valuable base for explaining leisure and travel research in the future.