Competitiveness and Sustainability in Wine Tourism Regions: The Application of a Stage Model of Destination Development to Two Canadian Wine Regions

Recently, both wine production and wine tourism have increased rapidly, ­particularly in areas outside of traditional old world wine regions. In this chapter, a stage model is presented which outlines the development of a hypothetical wine tourism destination region. Two geographical regions in Canada, the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario and the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, are the sites for testing the elements of this spatial model. The purpose is to identify their stages of development and to suggest their positions as competitive and sustainable tourism destination regions. Balancing the elements in the internal supply characteristics and in the demand characteristics for wine tourism is important in achieving an optimal state of tourism development.