Customer Experience in the Wine Tourism: Evidence from Bolgheri (Italy)

The purpose of this paper is to consider how the customer experience (CE) can be used by the wine company in order to enriching the value proposition and improve the competive advantage. Considering the Pine and Gilmore model, the study has conducted a qualitative reaserch to 4 small sized wine companies located in Bolgheri area (Tuscany, Italy). The aim is to understand how the experience proposed by these companies fits into the aforementioned model by enriching and enhancing the tangible wine product, in order to make it unique and rich in meanings. This is one of the first attempts to consider the winery as a company that creates experiences. This effort increasingly requires a coordinated and synergic activity of several actors, also operating in the public sphere, and the exaltation of the settlement area which, having unique peculiarities in the world, is itself a source of unique and memorable experiences.