Social media sites, like TripAdvisor, allow postings of User Generated Content (UGC) that provide restaurant customers with the opportunity of sharing their experiences and recording their satisfaction and dissatisfaction. These activities represent an essential form of electronic word-of-mouth that can influences the decision process of other customers. The paper investigates tourist satisfaction experiences as expressed in UGC on TripAdvisor to determine the role that wine plays in customer satisfaction with fine dining restaurants. A list of the world's top 1000 restaurants is used to identify five top- and five bottom-ranked restaurants and data in the form of six UGC narratives written by tourists on TripAdvisor for each restaurant are collected. Lexical analysis of the sixty narratives collected is undertaken via the Leximancer software. Results are reported, implications are discussed, limitations are noted, and directions for future research are indicated.
Wine tourism is becoming an increasingly important tourism niche with various regions competing for tourism dollars. It is often assumed that differentiation in the sector is region based. This research investigates the positioning narratives from websites of a sample of top wine tour service firms across the US and Australia. Analysis is undertaken using an innovative methodology that combines computer-based lexical analysis followed by hierarchical clustering on principal components. The research seeks to determine the extent to which identified clusters are region based and whether the positioning narratives on websites can provides useful clusters across regions. Results are reported, implications are discussed, limitations are noted and possible areas for further research are indicated.
Consumers today are well accustomed to a digitized consumer journey, actively seeking social proof from online customer reviews to guide consumption decisions. These review platforms have been shown to be influential in guiding consumer behavior across many product and service categories. The language used to describe products on review platforms is of importance, given its potential to influence consumer perceptions and purchase intentions. Despite this, little attention is placed on the language used in reviews. In order to address this gap, this research sought to analyze and contrast the language used in online customer reviews within the wine category, by contrasting the lexical characteristics of reviews of white and red wine. The research made use of 2917 online wine reviews for four different varietals, two red wine (cabernet sauvignon and shiraz) and two white wine (chardonnay and sauvignon blanc) varietals. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used to conduct a lexical analysis, with the results indicating both similarities and differences between the reviews of red and white wine varietals. The results provide insight into the lexical components of the wine reviews and the implications that these bear on the perceived usefulness of the review.
This paper investigated whether the nature of the language in wine reviews differs by wine ratings. Reviews of 1-, 3- and 5-star wines were downloaded into text files, then analyzed for Word Count, Analytic, Clout, Authentic and Tone by using LIWC text analysis. ANOVAS was adopted to determine differences between reviews by ratings. There were significant differences between wines by star rating on Word Count, Analytic, and Tone, while there were no significant differences on Clout and Authenticity. This research was limited to South African wines, 1-, 3- and 5-star reviews. It was not possible to identify all individual reviewers. Also, price and availability were not considered. Research implications include using other textual analysis software to conduct inter-reviewer comparison of reviews with the same ratings by different influential wine writers, investigating price as a variable in rating and review, and authenticity as a factor in the context. Wine marketers can help wine makers gain a better understanding of what tastemakers prefer by analyzing wine reviews with automated text analysis software such as LIWC. A positive link between word count in a wine review, the degree of analysis and tone used with the ratings of wines by experts can be established.
This paper considers a sample of successful wine bloggers, and clusters them into four distinct segments that could be targeted by wine marketers in different ways. Using text that they wrote in response to being named to a survey of 100 top wine blogs, we employ an advanced textual analysis tool (LIWC) to categorize the writings according to the following characteristics: analytical thinking, clout, authenticity, and emotional tone. This data is then used in a clustering procedure that distinguishes four distinct groups of bloggers: the Analysts, the Agnostics, the Authentic Pessimists, and the Confident Optimists.
What are the characteristics of the literature published in the Journal of Wine Research? This article examines all 317 research articles published in the Journal of Wine Research from 1990 to 2015 along five key dimensions; authorship, author institutions, manuscript characteristics, research themes, and citation impact. Our analysis shows a trend towards co-authorship and increased collaboration among multiple institutions. We also conclude that academics are responsible for the majority of articles and that European authors lead the way in publishing productivity. Other findings include a trend towards longer articles that cite more references. Articles focussing on the business of wine have increased over time and are most prevalent. Using citation analysis, we find that the large majority of publications in the Journal of Wine Research have been cited. Altogether, our investigation depicts the history, evolution, and trajectory of the Journal of Wine Research to date, therein giving scholars in the field the only research that provides detailed insight into the contours of this important journal
Icewine is a sizable niche in the Canadian wine industry that has attracted little attention from marketing and branding researchers. A first step in understanding the marketing mix and brand positioning strategies was to develop a modified Aesthetics and Ontology (AO) framework to classify consumers of luxury wines and spirits specifically focused on icewine. This paper examines where Canadian icewine producers place their brand and consumers within this AO typology. The authors applied a thematic analysis approach to categorize five semi-structured interviews with representatives of Canadian icewine producers. The modified AO framework was applied to the findings to assess the positioning of the respective icewine brands. The analysis uncovered decidedly homogenous approaches to the positioning and marketing of Canadian icewine. Most purchasers were regarded as novices, with the largest portion of purchases occurring at duty free retail locations; on-site winery experiences comprise a secondary channel. Applying the modified AO framework, the predominant customer group was identified as the ‘carouser’. Product variances, pricing strategies, and product packaging were comparatively minor. This homogenous approach to branding and marketing mix should be further explored to understand the potential for alternative and distinct positioning methodologies for Canadian icewine producers.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of product knowledge, both subjective and objective, on the relative importance of four extrinsic product attributes of wine, namely price, age, brand and region of origin. The relative importance of four product attributes is evaluated comparative to consumers' self-reported and objectively measured knowledge of wine, using the conjoint analysis technique. The results suggest that product knowledge does influence the relative importance of extrinsic wine attributes in product evaluation, with the price of wine shown to be the dominant attribute regardless of the level of product knowledge expertise. Brand, age and region of origin received differing rankings of importance. Across all four levels of product knowledge, consumers navigate their evaluative product decisions according to the midpoint between most and least expensive wines in their consideration set. Price sensitivity appears to heavily impact consumer evaluation strategies, which serves to inform wine pricing strategies.