Retired director of the German Wine Institute Armin Göring was recently in South Africa for the wine tourism conference and Neil Pendock asked him how international wine tourism was holding up in the recessionary climate.
Göring replied that “in Europe we have no signs or figures that wine tourism is in decline. It seems that people tend to enjoy traveling to wine regions even more, to meet growers and have a good glass of wine, instead of suffering from bad news”.
Encouragingly Göring said he saw no real obstacles to increased wine tourism in South Africa apart from the long travel from Europe. But then we are closer than Australia and New Zealand.