The role of wine tourism in internationalization of Italian SMEs

Purpose: The paper aims to examine the influence of international tourism on the internationalization process of Italian SMEs producing Bianchello del Metauro wine. Methodology: Eight in-depth interviews with owners of SMEs producing this wine were conducted for this case study paper. Findings: In most cases, international tourism permitted wine SMEs to create a relationship/network with tourists’ foreign markets and expand internationally. In several cases, both wine SMEs and international visitors identified business opportunities, and this led to collaboration for exporting wine. In other cases, international tourists suggested the firm to contact an importer or decided to contact an importer themselves for getting access to Bianchello del Metauro in their country of origin. Research limitations: As this paper was based on eight cases, this limits the generalizability of the results. Practical implications: To expand their export geography, wine SMEs should pay more attention to attracting tourists and creating relationships/networks with them. Originality: Although several scholars have examined a possible relation between international tourism flow and international trade and confirmed that wine tourism creates marketing opportunities to sell products, most have carried out quantitative research. Therefore, there is a lack of exploratory and qualitative research. Moreover, it is also necessary to study why some wine producers internationalize suddenly after being local-market oriented for decades and why they experience difficulties in internationalization as such firms have received less attention in internationalization literature. This study contributed towards closing these gaps.