A systematic literature review on sustainability in the wine tourism industry: insights and perspectives

This study aims to carry out a systematic literature review to identify the factors stimulating the adoption of sustainable practices by wine tourism companies, from two perspectives: supply and demand.

To carry out the systematic literature review, a search in two databases – ISI Web of Science and SCOPUS – was performed to collect wine tourism and sustainability-related papers. This search allowed to identify 60 papers published during the period 2005–2020.

The analysis revealed three factors explaining the adoption of sustainable practices by wine tourism companies, from the supply perspective: competitiveness, innovation and territorial development. From the demand perspective, two factors that emerged are as follows: awareness and recognition. Sustainability strategies contribute to improving companies’ competitiveness; innovation is associated essentially with reducing the ecological footprint, whereas adaptation to new forms of consumption and territorial development is connected to economic and social development. Consumers are increasingly aware and choose sustainable and responsible lifestyles; this being reflected in their new preferences and the recognition given to firms that implement sustainable practices. The findings also show that companies are increasingly establishing goals and objectives taking sustainable development into consideration, and consumers are also aware of sustainability issues at the moment of acquiring products and services. In addition, the wine tourism sector was found to be growing worldwide.

The originality of the current study is based on focussing the supply and demand sides simultaneously. Furthermore, as no previous review was made in the subject of sustainability in the wine tourism sector, the findings are both innovative and original and provide valuable guidance for future research.