A Study on Creation and Development of Wine Tourism Circuits in Maharashtra

Abstract

Wine Tourism in Maharashtra is developing steadily owing to several initiatives on the part of wine tourism service providers. Although in a nascent stage as compared to its international counterparts, wine tourism in India is domestically growing as a form of special interest tourism. Wine tourism in Maharashtra, as a niche form of tourism, made its beginning with several wineries offering wine tours within their vineyards and wineries in Nashik and Pune. If individual vineyards and wineries offering wine tourism services is the first step towards inception of wine tourism in a wine region, the creation of wine trails and wine tourism circuits is the next most logical and quintessential step towards growth of wine tourism in that region. This paper attempts to explore two important areas of wine tourism circuit creation and development in Maharashtra which also form the objectives of this study. They are (a) what are the most important considerations during the creation of wine tourism circuits in wine regions? And (b) what are the opinions of wine tourism service providers on the creation and development of wine tourism circuits’ in wine regions of Maharashtra? For the purpose of this study, both primary and secondary sources of data were used. For collection of primary data, a survey was conducted among the wineries of Maharashtra to study their opinions on creation of wine tourism circuits.