Emerging from anthropology, climatology, ecology, gastronomy, geography and wine tourism, terroir tourism has been recently recognized to have potential for developing rural agriculture tourism in Oregon. However, little research has investigated to determine terroir tourism and its characteristics, differentiating it from wine tourism. This paper investigates potential experiences and characteristics of terroir tourism from the organic vineyard perspective. The extensive literature review on experience economy and wine tourism conducted for this study reveals that terroir has 59 characteristics categorized into four viticulture terroir categories. The findings will help future research to better understand the characteristics of terroir tourism to build theory and constructs for future investigation using the 4E framework. The results will help Oregon further develop rural agriculture tourism based on is apparent terroir tourism characteristics.
Author: Byron Marlowe
Carson College of Business, School of Hospitality Business Management, Washington State University, 2710 Crimson Way, Richland, WA 99354, United States of America
Email: byron.marlowe@wsu.edu
Keywords: Terroir, Tourism, Organic, Experience economy