Exploring wine tourism in Bulgaria: A pathway to sustainable rural and tourism development?

Abstract: Wine tourism is a niche tourism product that is increasing in wine regions across the world. Wine tourism is also being hailed as a more sustainable approach to tourism due to its promotion of economic, environmental and social sustainability. Sustainable rural development is a high priority around the world due to declining rural economies. Tourism is increasingly being viewed as a component of rural development strategy to revive rural economies and encourage preservation of natural and cultural assets. This thesis explores wine tourism development in Bulgaria and its role in sustainable rural development. Key challenges were identified as (i) lack of regional competitiveness; (ii) lack of public awareness and recognition, (iii) lack of regional and local infrastructure (roads and signage); (iv) lack of service delivery skills, capacity and proactive attitude in wineries; (v) lack of tourism strategies (national, regional and local level), planning processes and governance structure; (vi) lack of service quality assurance mechanisms; and (vii) lack of available market research. Using Distributed Economies (DE) as a conceptual framework, wine tourism clusters are proposed as a way to encourage collaboration between the wine and tourism industry. Transition Management (TM) is used as a theoretical framework to better understand how stakeholders can approach planning, implementation and governance processes involved in developing wine tourism. This research contributes to minimizing the knowledge gap in wine tourism development and its implications on rural development in the context of Bulgaria.