Motivations to attend a New Zealand wine and food festival: The role of involvement

Abstract

Purpose - This paper explores the motivations of attendees at the Christchurch/South Island Wine and Food Festival and examines the effect of wine involvement on these motivational factors. Design/methodology/approach - The data were collected via a structured self-complete survey, distributed by research assistants at the Wine and Food festival. In total 249 usable responses were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square and t tests. Findings - Wine involvement had a significant effect on the motivations of attendees to the wine and food festival. In particular, those with high wine involvement were much more motivated by learning objectives, including experiential learning (tasting new beer), as well as talking with friends and experts, although socialization and enjoying a festive atmosphere ranked as important motives also. By comparison, socialisation and relaxing motives were key for the low involvement attendees, who generally ranked all motives lower than the high involvement respondents. Practical implications - This paper explores the under-examined topic of the motivations for wine festival attendance. In particular, by segmenting the sample by wine involvement levels, the varying motives of wine festival attendees are apparent.