‘More than wine’. Wine routes as a strategic partnership for local development: The case of the Wine Route of Dionysus in Northern Greece

Resumo

Food and wine are part of our history and local identity that nowadays give floor to alternative forms of tourism achieving local sustainable development in rural areas and strategic partnerships. One tool available for rural destinations, bringing together a constellation of stakeholders, is the creation of wine routes. The purpose of the paper is to research collaborations between different stakeholders and evaluate the shared benefits of the creation of a wine route in the region of Drama, one of the most famous winemaking regions in Northern Greece. Using a qualitative research, and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders from the wine tourism ecosystem, such as local winemakers, representatives of rural
tourism HORECA, experts from wine and tourism organizations and local development agencies, the paper tries to shed light to causes for non-participation in the wine route and the partnership managing the wine route, as well as to shared benefits from wine tourism in the area, perceived by those experts. From the results we see that people need to put on the table much more than just wine. They need to put trust, culture of cooperation, time, and resources for their strategic partnership to work towards inclusive, local and sustainable development. This is especially true in the post-covid-19 era, which is expected to give alternative forms of tourism and especially wine tourism, a promising future.