Cindy Molchany, Author at Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference

Call for Content for 2013 Wine Tourism Conference

March 6, 2013 by Cindy Molchany

If you have session and/or speaker ideas for the 2013 Wine Tourism Conference, please submit them by March 17, 2013. You can either leave your suggestions below as a comment or email them to Allan Wright at allan_wright at zephyradventures dot com.

When submitting a session idea, please pitch the idea with 2-3 sentences. If providing a speaker idea, please accompany it with possible session topics.

Once we receive suggestions from the wine tourism community, we will send them back out for vote. We will work to incorporate the top sessions into the greater agenda and begin to book speakers.

For the more details on the agenda for the week, click here.

Click here to register for the 2013 Wine Tourism Conference.

Email your content ideas to allan_wright at zephyradventures dot com.

Pre-Conference Excursion Destination: Southern Willamette Valley, Oregon!

January 3, 2013 by Cindy Molchany

We are very excited about the Wine Tourism Conference taking place in beautiful Oregon this year (November 13 – 15). The conference is growing with additional workshops, events, and sessions – all geared towards growing awareness of wine tourism and helping wine regions succeed in their wine tourism efforts. One wine region that has really embraced the concept of wine tourism is the Southern Willamette Valley. This will be the destination of the Wine Tourism Conference’s Pre-Conference Excursion.

The Pre-Conference Excursion will begin on Wednesday, November 12th in Eugene, Oregon and conclude on Thursday, November 13th. The excursion supplement is $50 per person, and includes local transportation to and from winery visits for both days, and lunch and dinner on 11/12. Not included in the cost of the excursion is transportation to Eugene, lodging at the Vally River Inn, and the train ticket from Eugene to Portland on 11/13.

Full excursion logistics and details can be found on our EVENTS page.

On Tuesday, participants will begin the excursion with a small plates lunch and tasting provided by the Eugene, Cascades & Coast Adventure Center followed by visits to Sarver Winery (tentative) and Sweet Cheeks Winery . Tuesday’s finale will be at King Estate Winery.

If you’re familiar with King Estate, you likely know that any experience with them is one to remember. At the 2012 Wine Bloggers’ Conference, King Estate wowed over 350 bloggers with an exquisite five course meal of perfectly paired food and wine combinations. The winery itself sits atop a 1,033 acre certified organic property featuring a 475 acre vineyard and 30 acres of fruit and vegetable gardens that all supply produce for their critically acclaimed estate restaurant. Guests of the excursion will be treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of the estate, wine tasting, and a wine-paired dinner in the estate restaurant. You will no doubt walk away impressed by King Estate and the other wineries of the region, but will also leave inspired by what they are doing to grow wine tourism in the Southern Willamette Valley.

On Wednesday, participants who register for our pre-conference workshops in Portland will depart Eugene via Amtrak to Portland early that morning. The rest of the participants will spend a casual day visiting the the urban winery scene of Eugene as well as the new Brewery District. We will be departing on the 2:36 Amtrak for portland and will enjoy a final excursion tasting aboard the “Coast Starlight” en route to Portland.

Again, check out our Events page for full Pre-Conference Excursion details and other WTC event opportunities.

Conference registration is open for the 2013 Wine Tourism Conference and Pre-Conference Excursion.

Conference Reveals Challenges and Trends in Wine Tourism

November 26, 2012 by Cindy Molchany

As the 2^nd Annual Wine Tourism Conference wrapped up many attendees were enthusiastic about the connections they made with peers and what the two-day event revealed about the state of wine tourism. In addition to the networking opportunities the conference gives focus on the latest developments in the industry as well as the challenges and trends.

Chris Cutler from Swanson Vineyards in St. Helena, California, was pleased with the content. “This was my first WTC, so did not know what to expect. I felt like the presentations were very thoughtful, informative, and meant to add real value to my experience,” said Cutler.

2012 Wine Tourism Conference — Photo Credit: www.michaelwrightstudio.com

Both first time attendees and conference veterans agreed that collaborations and partnerships continue to be the lifeblood of successful wine tourism campaigns. And it is critical that all stakeholders’ work together to promote events and keep each other informed throughout the year.

#WineTourismConf — Photo Credit: www.michaelwrightstudio.com

The primary challenges cited were not having the budget or support from the leaders in local and state governments to make wine tourism a priority and the need to educate local city councils on the revenue created by in market dollars spent on wine tourism.

A leading trend in many markets was the combination of wine and activity. From cooking classes to kayaking, developing programs that reach customers through their interests and passions is one of the most effective ways to create an experience that connects people to a brand or region and converts visitors into consumers after a trip.

Wine Tourism Conference 2012 — Photo Credit: www.michaelwrightstudio.com

Social media continues to be an important part of the marketing mix for wine tourism and many attendees noted their biggest challenges were managing the growth of social media and the need to have guidelines in place to handle both negative and positive feedback on user generated on comment sites such as Trip Advisor and Yelp.

Looking towards the future, the consensus was that the future for wine tourism looks bright, and that mobile applications and third party reviews will be the key drivers as more wine tourists depend on their hand–held devices for food, wine, and lodging recommendations.

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Author: Marcy Gordon

Photo Credit: Michael Wright Studio

Notes from the Winery breakout session at the Wine Tourism Conference

November 20, 2012 by Cindy Molchany

As promised, here are the collective notes from the winery breakout session on Wednesday, 11/14/12 led by Michaela Baltasar and Taylor Eason.

The session was attended by over 50 people, mostly associated with the direct to consumer sales and marketing efforts of a independent winery. The room was divided into 7 different categories allowing people to sit with a group that was interested in the same category.

The groups introduced each other and began sharing ideas around their category. Michaela and Taylor then instructed the groups to each come up with a list of highlights from their discussion to share with the session. The following list are the 7 categories and notes taken from the session.

Eat, Sleep, Shop – Partnering with Restaurants, Hotels & Retail

Empower your sales staff to build their own relationships with other business representatives and give them the leverage to make decisions that will drive traffic as a result
Work on person to person relationships
Incentivize your sales staff that build those types of relationships
Participate in progressive events – multiple venues
Call & thank businesses who send traffic to you (concierges too)
Partner with retail shops and pour your wine there
Be authentic & positive in your relationship building with people
Service is the foundation / Customer is #1. Remember what they have potentially gone through to visit you. Don’t close shop early or make late guests feel unwelcome.
Offer to train restaurant staff on your wines
Staff retention: long standing employees says volumes about your winery and the kind of business you run

Deal Making – Using Flash Sites (Groupon, Living Social, Gilt, Bloomspot, etc)

Think about who you want as a customer, and then structure any Groupon offer around that
Groupon could involve a community/business collaboration
Make sure you are collecting data in your tasting room on where your visitors are coming from so that you know what services you should use in the future

Be Seen – Building Can’t Miss Events that Drive Traffic

Drive new traffic, increase PR, and grow your contacts by partnering w/ non-profits or charities. It also helps with licensing issues.
Events are a great way to get people to commit. Create early bird pricing specials and up-sell (sell a table for an event rather than a reservation)
Build events around the interests of your membership (i.e. fly fishing) and bring vendors that apply to those interests. It ads value.
Follow trends (i.e. food trucks, mud runs, etc) and incorporate into your event strategy.
Don’t use Groupon for your winery events
People are tired of basic food & wine pairing events. Sometimes only subtle changes to food and wine pairing events are needed for big impact.

Traditional Channels – Working With Your Local Tourism Board

It’s about Relationships: return the phone call and email
Agree to pour at their events
Ask them what they need from you
Partner with tourism boards and piggy back off their larger events
Reward & educate their volunteers and staff
Cross pollinate with other regional tourism offices
Be active with tourism boards – it will help increase your exposure
Remember they have budgets and press contacts (free PR)
Working with Tourism Boards could have global reach for your brand – think big picture.

Neighbors – Developing a Referral Program Among Wineries

Find similar winery partners (size, price point, etc)
Cross train each other’s staff
“GEMS” = successful referral program
Promotional offers – share your wine club benefits with your neighbor winery’s members and vise-versa

The Network – Using Social Media

Make Wifi available in your tasting room – it promotes engagement!
Goal with Social Media is to drive DTC traffic
Social Media is not necessarily about giving something away – it’s about sharing what you offer
Track the data and analyze – it’s important to know what channels people are coming from.
A successful campaign is “Wine Club Member of the Day” on Facebook. It draws people in and engages them
Check the online reviews and respond.

Local Tourism – Getting Locals Engaged

Rule of 10 – When you leave your winery – where can you go that is within a 10 minute drive? Those are the businesses where your recommendations are coming from.
Participate and visit happy hours within this radius.
Hold a local’s night and extend hours and specials in your tasting room

There is now a facebook group for registered attendees of the conference. If you attended the conference, you can ask to join at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/134816410002071/ This list will be posted as a document within that group.

Lively Discussions in Wine Tourism Industry Breakout Sessions

November 15, 2012 by Cindy Molchany

One of the best aspects of yesterday’s Wine Tourism Conference content were the two-hour industry breakout sessions. The 236 people attending the conference split into these groups: wineries, wine and tourism associations, tour operators, and other wine tourism related businesses.

The industry breakout session for “other” businesses (lodging providers, media, marketing, PR, and other wine tourism related businesses) consisted of a lively discussion moderated by Ray Johnson, Director of Sonoma State University’s Wine Business Institute and Marcy Gordon, of Come for the Wine. The conversation ranged form the challenges facing implementing wine tourism initiatives in their particular business model to the types of collaborations and partnerships that have been most fruitful over the last year.

In the tour operator session, moderated by Reno Walsh of Zephyr Adventures (which organizes active travel tours in wine regions in addition to the conference itself), the group focused on marketing and what is and is not effective in securing customers. Members came away with a long list of ideas for how to improve their individual marketing.

One of the most fascinating sessions was the breakout group of wine and tourism associations, hosted by Donnie Winchell of Ohio Wine. It was amazing just to listen to each person’s brief introduction of their individual wine or tourism region. Ultimately, the group agreed the regions should work together more to grow wine tourism as a whole, which will help each region individually. More on this to come!

Finally, a large group of winery representatives gathered to address the challenges of getting visitors in the cellar door, something that is so important in the sales mix for many wineries. This session was moderated by Michaela Baltasar and Taylor Eason.