Developing strategy of wine festival promotion

The purpose of this paper is to determine how wine festival criteria impact on their promotion, and to develop practical recommendations and a strategy for wine festivals both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative data from 29 wine festival websites were gathered. Content analysis was used to establish criteria that affect promotion of wine festivals. Crosstabs were used to check whether established wine festival criteria affect a festival’s decision to disclose a participating wineries list as part of a marketing effort. The Alignment Squared model was used to draw up recommendations for organizing wine festivals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings – Neutral, positive and negative criteria that have an impact on promotion of wine festivals were determined and practical recommendations were suggested on how wine festivals could benefit from these criteria. The connections between the general running time of wine festivals and their all-year-round marketing circle were studied. The statistical connection between wine festival criteria and its tendency to practice cross-marketing with participating wineries were examined. Originality – Recent studies do not consider and systematize the strategies for wine festival promotion. The criteria described in this study may be used as a basis for a comprehensive classification of wine festivals and bring valuable insights into organization of wine festivals around the world, while practical recommendations may be used as a guideline for organizers of wine festivals after the COVID-19 pandemic and if world crises like this ever happen again.