The influence of a wine festival on tourists' life satisfaction

THE INFLUENCE OF A WINE FESTIVAL ON TOURISTS LIFE SATISFACTION The Wacky Wine Festival is hosted by the Robertson Valley in the Western Cape Province and is seen as one of South Africa's biggest regional wine festivals. The festival provides a number of products and services to the diverse wine tourist market at the various wine cellars participating in the festival. Wine festivals provide a lifestyle package to the tourist; comprising of wine, food, tourism and arts. A tourist has certain needs and chooses the festival to satisfy those needs in order to gain a satisfactory experience. Satisfaction with the wine festival, comprising products and services, will have an influence on the various life domains of tourists. These life domains include Social-, Leisure and recreational-, Intellectual-, Culinary-, as well as Travel life. Satisfaction with the festival will, in turn, influence the overall Life Satisfaction of the wine tourist, for Life Satisfaction is derived from satisfaction with primary life domains. Satisfaction with these primary life domains stems from satisfaction with the aspects of each life domain. However, few studies have been conducted in tourism that seek to link tourist satisfaction of a tourism product/service with Life Satisfaction. Forecasting the needs of tourists, and providing tourists with a satisfactory experience will have a number of benefits. These include (1) future loyalty to the festival; (2) increased sales for the festival as well as for the wineries included; and (3) contributing to iv the sustainability of the festival. In order to foresee the needs and provide tourists with a satisfactory experience, it is important to understand the wine tourist as there is not a stereotypical wine tourist. This understanding can be gained by determining geo-demographic and psychographic characteristics of the tourists visiting the Wacky Wine Festival. By developing an in-depth knowledge of the wine tourist; greater satisfaction can be ensured thus promoting repeat visits and increased sales for the festival, as well as for the participating wineries. The main purpose of this study was therefore to determine the influence of a wine festival on tourists' Life Satisfaction. In order to achieve this goal, the study comprises 2 articles. The research underpinning both of the articles was conducted at the Wacky Wine Festival in June 2009. A self-administrated questionnaire was distributed during the festival, according to the convenience sampling method. This method is based on the basic premise that the participants are chosen based on their availability to participate. A total of 329 questionnaires were completed during the survey. From these questionnaires, data was obtained and results were analysed. The first article was titled 'The relationship of visitors' festival experience and life domains'. It is evident that the main purpose of this article was to determine the influence of a wine festival on tourists' life domains by means of satisfaction with the festival. This article indicates the importance of service quality in enhancing tourist satisfaction. A satisfactory experience will have an influence on life domains. Tourist satisfaction will therefore influence satisfaction in various life domains. This in turn influences overall Life Satisfaction. In order to achieve the objectives of the article, descriptive statistics were used to determine satisfaction with the festival and more specific an exploratory factor analysis was conducted