Wine tourism is a difficult topic when you’re not a specialist of… tourism but love wine. Promoting both at the same time is a difficult exercise: wine is part of a local culture. When you didn’t travel to the place where the wine comes from, you discover a region through the wine. How to connect both?

Some people found the right answer and founded 10 years ago the “Great Wine Capitals Network” or GWC. The network includes the major wine regions of some parts of the world: Bordeaux in France, Mendoza in Argentina, Bilbao and Rioja in Spain, Mainz in Germany, Napa Valley in California, Cape Town in South Africa, Porto in Portugal, Firenze in Italy and now Christchurch in New Zealand. It is the only such network to encompass the so-called ‘Old’ and ‘New’ worlds of wine, and exists to encourage travel, education and business exchange between their internationally-renowned centers. In its 10 years of existence, the network has created many interesting initiatives: the “Best of Wine Tourism awards”, an annual international grant for students, organization of many symposiums and conferences as well as facilities to promote wine tourism.

The GWC is managed by its General Secretary, Catherine Leparmentier, based in Bordeaux, France. The group is very active on the Net with a Facebook group, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn Group and now a blog. Quite recent, the blog opened about 3 weeks ago but has already many interesting posts. I especially enjoyed the ones on Tourism 2.0 and the Vivanco Dinastio Wine Museum.

The Great Wine Capitals are really in Web 2.0! Long live to their blog!

I’ll be speaking on Wine Tourism and New Technologies at Vinexpo on June 24th during the seminar organized by the Great Wine Capitals Network. Here is the program for those who will be in Bordeaux at that time:

Great Wine Capitals Global Network (GWC GN) is pleased to announce, in partnership with the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a conference on:

Wine Tourism: New Trends, Benefits & Challenges faced by Wineries.

The purpose of this conference is to inform participants about new marketing tools & strategies, their uses and impact on a winery’s wine tourism strategy, the marketing of their service towards tourism operators, social networks and blogs, wine clubs and best practices.

The conference, held in English with simultaneous French translation, will take place during the VINEXPO professional wine trade fair (21st-25th June), on
Wednesday 24th June, 2009 at the Palais des Congrès in Bordeaux Lac, Bordeaux

Speakers are all experts belonging to one of the member cities of the Network and have a wealth of experience in the wine tourism field, an important basis for them to give an insightful and knowledgeable talk on their specific subject of wine tourism. There will also be a questions and answers period at the end.

The conference speakers will be:
André Morgenthal, Communications Manager, Wines of South Africa. Moderator

1. Terry Hall, Napa Valley Vintners, Communications Director.
Bringing forward the Wine Tourism concept

2. Karine Quéron, Château Fonplégade, First Rank Growth of Saint-Emilion.
The adaptation in Bordeaux vineyards of a typical Californian tool: creation of a Wine Club at Fonplégade.

3. Raquel Perèz Cuevas, Bodega Ontañon, Rioja.
Return on investment of the opening of a museum in a winery.

4. Steffen Schindler, Head of press office & Director marketing, German Wine Institute.
The Marketing Strategy of German Wine Institute to develop wine tourism.

5. Vincent Lhoste, International Wine Travel Market (IWTM).
B2B: How to market your service product to tourism professionals.

6. Evelyne Resnick, RESMO, International Web Strategy wines and brands, Bordeaux.
Social networks and blogs influence on traveling in the vineyards

7. André Morgenthal, Communications Manager, Wines of South Africa.
International Best Practices: ‘Best Of’ Wine Tourism.

About Great Wine Capitals Global Network
Great Wine Capitals is a network of eight major global cities in both the northern and southern hemisphere, which share a key economic and cultural asset: each is an internationally renowned wine region. It is the only such network to encompass the so-called ‘Old’ and ‘New’ worlds of wine, and exists to encourage travel, education and business exchanges between the wine tourism centers of Bilbao|Rioja (Spain), Bordeaux (France), Cape Town (South Africa), Florence (Italy), Mainz|Rheinhessen (Germany), Mendoza (Argentina), Porto (Portugal) and San Francisco| Napa Valley (USA).

For further information, visit www.greatwinecapitals.com
Contact: Catherine Leparmentier, Permanent Secretary
+33 (0)5 56 79 51 64
cleparmentier@bordeaux.cci.fr