Wine landscapes and culture as drivers of local and regional development in pandemic times: a comparative study among Peruvian and Spanish cellars

During the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic, the wine cellars–some of them considered tourist attractions–have been forced to rethink and reshape their touristic offer. This situation has focused on the wine landscape as the main attraction instead of wine cellars since outdoor activities have been most demanded by tourists eager to escape their cities’ lockdown restrictions. The primary purpose of this paper focuses on understanding the role of wine landscapes in driving the tourism sector in regions where those wineries were still operating. In addition, it aims to understand the management decisions during COVID-19 regarding wine tourism experiences based on wine landscapes and how those decisions might drive local and regional development. To achieve this goal, the present research proposes a comparative analysis of wine cellars in Peru and Spain. Therefore, a qualitative methodology is applied based on three focus groups with 14 wine cellar managers. The analysis focuses on the common elements of local and regional development proposed by Pike et al. (2006. Desarrollo local y regional. Traducción de Noguera, J. (2011). Publicaciones de la Universidad de Valencia) linked to winescapes. The results obtained revealed, how winescapes are crucial elements for contributing to local and regional development. Moreover, they provide insights regarding intangible cultural resources as a mechanism for recovering the tourism sector and how managers could take advantage of them. The conclusions highlight the potential of winescapes for tourism to recover regardless of the country and the ample room for improvement by the wine cellar managers, where the analysis identifies the lack of knowledge and creativity applied to their tourism offer.