Stellenbosch Wine-lands Guided Tour (one of my school reports)

Stellenbosch Wine-lands Guided Tour

Stellenbosch, South Africa

 Stellenbosch is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, situated about 50 kilometers east of Cape Town, along the banks of the Eerste River at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain. It is the second oldest European settlement in the province, after Cape Town.

Stellenbosch is known for its natural beauty and oak-lined avenues, Cape Dutch architecture, history, culture and of course its wine routes. It is a quite small town buzzed with hotels, wine shops, cafés, restaurants, boutiques, art galleries and museums. And it is also surrounded by wine farms. 

The Stellenbosch Wine Routes – the largest and oldest in the country – encompass more than 200 wine and grape producers in the region, which are divided into five sub-routes: Greater Simonsberg, Bottelary Hills, Stellenbosch Valley, Stellenbosch Berg and Helderberg, each with unique wines, climates and charm. 

La Rochelle Tours is one of the performer of the initiative. The friendly team at Stellenbosch Wine Tours offers fun, yet informative day tours around the Winelands of the beautiful Cape. Stellenbosch is also known as the Gourmet Capital of South Africa. wherefore, there are some amazing restaurants in the area. So, the tour operator also offers gourmet tour packages for those interested. In general, the gourmet tours (with overnight stays) run between the months of May to September each year, and they can tailor making these gourmet tours to suit any budget and interest. The gourmet tours can also include other exciting wine regions within South Africa and couple of nights at one of the amazing safari lodges on the Garden Route.

Based on the different tours type that operator offers, for example: the  Stellenbosch Half Day / Full Day Private Wine Tour, to explore one of South Africa’s most popular wine regions, established in 1971. It is a good opportunity for middle class tourists. Also, it is the type of experience that special interest tourists like wine lovers and also couples can get to enjoy premium wines in a scenic environment which showcases how the terroir can influence the wines in different areas of Stellenbosch.
Moreover, the focus on this private tour is a stop at Stellenbosch Vineyards (established in 2004). Stellenbosch Vineyards Market their wines to over 60 countries and offers a wide range of wines which will suit both novice and connoisseur. The delightful experience at Stellenbosch Vineyards is followed by a visit in other gems in the Stellenbosch Wine Region. This kind of experience suits very well eco-tourists to whom cultural heritage is their primary interest and like to participate in the local economy.

Another example of their offer: The Franschhoek Tasting Experience for those who truly enjoy the finer things in life. 

With the Franschhoek Tasting Experience, the offer is oriented to think quality;  the occasion is offered to wealthy tourists who have half a day spare to taste luxury. Franschhoek Tasting Experience showcases some of Franschhoek’s culinary delights. Guests will visit two different wine estates in the Franschhoek Wine Region. The rates includes all the wine and food pairings. So this is also a good opportunity for foodies and occasional tourists who like to make their money worthy spent.

In this era (modernity), tourism develops in multiple forms, reflecting the different requests and different needs that come from the individuals. from the more traditional forms: seaside, urban, rural or thermal tourism. Today, more differentiated experiences are being added. (Patrizia Laurano, Il viaggiatore glocale, 2010).

Wine tourism, the active development and marketing of the wine tourism products is a relatively recent phenomenon. In Europe, wine tourism has largely been developed in the form of official wine roads or wine routes (Hall,Sharples,Cambourne,&Macionis,2000). In today's global wine market what it is important to recognize is that, the successful building of the brand identity and the image of the winery, the wine region and the country of origin is, arguably, the single most important factor that will determine the future success in the wine industry. Tourism is fundamentally about the difference of place (Relph, 1996), while wine is one of those rare commodities that is branded on the basis of its geographical origin (Merret and Whitwell, 1994). It is thus obvious that the development of wine routes forms an integral part of the wine tourism industry. In fact, they are the ‘roadways’ to the core attraction of wine tourism — the wine and the winery production facilities.

The associations formed through the establishment of wine routes between government, private enterprises, the tourism industry, wineries and the local council are best described as networks.This ‘networking‘ refers to a wide range of cooperative behavior between otherwise competing organizations and between organizations linked through economic and social relationships and transactions (Hall, Cambourne, Macionis, & Johnson 1997). Networks are specific arrangements of inter-organizational cooperation and collaboration. A basic assumption of network relationships is that parties are mutually dependent upon resources, controlled by another, and that there are gains to be had by the pooling of resources (Hall et al., 2000). 

Due to the multi-dimensional nature of wine tourism, there are several stakeholders that should be recognized. The wine industry’s involvement in tourism per se is a clear example of what is described (Leiper, 1989) as the difference between ‘being in the business and being in the industry of tourism’.

Job and Murphy (2006) examined the relationship between wine production, wine tourism, and regional development in the Moselle, Germany. In this area the development of the food and wine product together with tourism has become necessary due to the risk of a decline that could have affected the entire wine production sector due to the steep territories and the relative high management costs. A regional development company was set up with the specific purpose of coordinating marketing activities and ensuring  maximum synergy between wine production and the tourism sector. The company operated in the marketing sector, in the implementation of tourist programs and in the coordination between different economic sectors. These activities have made it possible, despite the difficulty of quantitatively analyzing the results, to maintain a consistent flow of wine tourists who have contributed to the production and therefore the maintenance of the wine landscape.

Johan Bruwer on his research “South African wine routes: some perspectives on the wine tourism industry’s structural dimensions and wine tourism product” (2002), argued that clearly in the South African wine industry the associative networks are not particularly strong or non-existent, a fact highlighted by 25% of the respondents, on his research, indicating that they don’t know who the direct stake holders in their wine routes are. Although, synergy exists between wine and tourism, the winery organizations situated on wine routes do not regard tourism in general as a direct stakeholder with only 4% recognizing tourism in that role. Relationship marketing is hence an area on which the South African industry should focus more.

In the matter of fact, by doing this exercise I personally was positively supervised to discover that South Africa has such a great wine industry and also connected to tourism; to appreciate how the South African wine route estates are heavily involved in the offering of organized winery tours and the opportunity of meeting the wine maker as one of the ‘actors’ in this ‘play’ is very common. Charging a tasting fee at the cellar-door is also quite common in the South African wine tourism industry. However, despite the fact that the first South African wine route was already established in 1971, at present, the associative networks are either non-existent or not strongly developed. Further research into this and the relationship marketing aspect with in the wine tourism industry is recommended.

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Bibliography and Websites

wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellenbosch 

Capetown.travel/Stellenbosch-the-official-guide

stellenboschwinetours.net

Johan Bruwer (2002),  South African wine routes: some perspectives on the wine tourism industry’s structural dimensions and wine tourism product.

Patrizia Laurano (2010), Il viaggiatore Glocale: mobilità, globalizzazione, comunicazione.

Armando Montanari (2009) Ecoturismo: principi, metodi e pratiche. 

The tour operator La Rochelle Tours references 

stellenboschwinetours.net 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/La-Rochelle-Tours/100002507364122 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/CapeWineTours

Instagram: #stellenboschwineroute