Sujet de thèse :
L’expérience œnotouristique : facteurs d’attachement des consommateurs aux vins français. Le cas des consommateurs chinois.
Date de démarrage de la thèse :
octobre 2022
Nom du (ou des) directeur(s) de thèse :
Juliette DUCROS-PASSEBOIS et Jean-Philippe GALAN
Résumé de la thèse :
For more than a decade, China has become a strategic market for French wine exports. In 2021, France had gained a leading position of wine import in the Chinese market (more than 100 million liters sold). France’s dominant position in China’s wine import is due to the good image of French wines in China. However, the position is weakened on the one hand by the good reputation of other European appellations (Hu and Baldin, 2018), on the other hand by the growth of Chinese wine production (China has become the world’s 2nd largest vineyard behind Spain according to OIV) but also by the sanitary crisis which raises uncertainties about the future of French wines on the Chinese market. Therefore, it seems important to focus on the means to be implemented to preserve the brand equity of French wines in China (i.e., the attitudes and behaviors of consumers associated with the brand and based on loyalty, quality, awareness, and associations with the brand according to Aaker, 1995) and to engage Chinese consumers in a lasting way with French wines. The thesis will analyze one of the factors of attachment and loyalty to wine brands: the wine tourism experience. The wine tourism experience corresponds to ‘the experience that tourists have when they are in contact with elements of wine tourism i.e. wine tastings, estate visits, vineyards, festivals and wine landscapes’ (Ribeiro Santos et al., 2019). For many wine tourism destinations, including Bordeaux, Chinese tourists are one of the prime targets of the wine tourism activities implemented. Tourists and wine buyers have the same socio-demographic profiles (García-Cortijo et al., 2019). Chinese tourists indeed have a particular appetite for the gustatory discovery of local products and gastronomy coupled with a strong interest in wine, its manufacturing processes (Gu et al., 2017). Building on the literature on the components of the wine tourism experience (educational, aesthetic, social, escapism …) (Gomez et al., 2019; Santos et al., 2019; Carvalho et al? 2021; Brochado et al., 2021), the thesis will analyze under what conditions and through what mechanisms a wine tourism experience is likely to develop a lasting attachment to French wines and more specifically to the terroir wines visited (the wine ‘brands’). The thesis will analyze the experience – as well as its memory – and will link these elements with concepts such as brand attachment, commitment, and the image of brands and appellations.
