Prensa Ibérica, the Alt Empordà weekly and the Perelada wineries address “the new challenges of wine tourism” after, for the first time, they have exceeded the figure of 80,000 visitors
“He wine tourism in Alt Empordà has grown in creativity.” This is the headline you would like to see written to maria baro, responsible for the wine tourism project of the Bodegas Perelada if a day like the one held this Monday in Peralada is repeated in a year. The brand new figurehead of the tourism wine in the Alt Empordà, the spectacular winery of the Peralada Group Opened barely a year ago, it was the scene of a meeting between the main players in the sector, in which there was, first, a round table between Baró herself, Xavier Albertí, president of the DO Empordà Regulatory Council; Pep Amiel, president of La Cocina del Viento, and Agustí Badosa, vice president of the Regional Council, and later a conference by Adela Pereira –’Profitable wine tourism: how to attract and retain visitors’–, in which this specialist in marketing from the world of wine explained different strategies for “monetize” the wine tourism bets of the wineries.
Both in the round table and in the conference, he planned a criterion shared by all: wine tourism in the Empordà should not be obsessed with growing in quantitywhich is already doing it, but in quality and in what Pereira defines “as the singularities that make you different”. “You can’t keep making visits explaining how wine is made, because it’s done more or less the same everywhere; visitors must be shown our values, our own identity, because it’s about building loyalty, establishing a link.”
The conference on the new challenges of wine tourism has been promoted by Prensa Ibérica, the Alt Empordà Weekly and Celler Perelada, with the collaboration of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Regulatory Council of the Empordà Designation of Origin, La Cocina del Viento and the Association of Alt Empordà Hospitality.