Georgian family wine tourism: opportunities for development, challenges and ways to overcome them

Abstract

Georgia has all the good things that are necessary for the development of wine tourism: the history of wine- growing, the unique technology of wine production, the abundance of grape varieties and the natural conditions that contribute to the production of unique wine. Wine tourism is a relatively new field of business. Its development significantly contributes to solving socio- economic problems in rural areas. The identification of existing problems in Georgian family wine tourism and the search for ways to overcome them is the main goal of this article. In order to identify the problems, we investigated family wine cellars, for which we used a common method of quantitative research - a mass survey, which was carried out through telephone interviews of producers of wine tourism products in the regions. Out of 144 wineries surveyed, 122 wineries are engaged in wine tourism, and 89% believe that wine tourism fully met their expectations. It is also important that 86% of the surveyed respondents confirmed that the visit of wine tourists has a significant impact on the sales of wine on the spot. Wine production and wine tourism have the same benefits for 80.3%, it is also worth noting that all respondents believe that wine production will increase as a result of the close connection between winemaking and tourism. Family members are involved in the vast majority of family winery wine tourism businesses. 72.9% of the interviewed respondents have the problem of qualified labor, entrepreneurs consider financial assistance (89.3%), raising the qualifications of employees (72.9%), organizing the infrastructure (62.2%) and cheap credit necessary for the development of wine tourism. In our opinion, family wine tourism is getting bigger and bigger and has great potential for development. The state should take more active steps to help small wineries:  to help in order of infrastructure  Long-term financing programs tailored to small wineries should be established  Banking sector should help small and medium wineries to get low interest loans  It would be good if educational projects were started for owners of small wineries (training of professional personnel, training in a foreign language).  It is important to raise awareness about Georgian wine, so it would be good to create a single electronic platform where video reviews about wineries will be posted.  Online stores are also a good idea, which are already easily accessible for wine lovers. This will be a good advertisement and will increase the awareness of family wineries, which will allow family wineries to attract both local and foreigners interested in exporting wine.