Business Commons^™

South Beach Wine And Food Festival - Why Participate?, Henrik Lilleheim, Reidar J. Mykletum, William J. Quain, Christer Engstom

Hospitality Review

This paper studies why restaurants, wineries, and other exhibiters participate in Wine & Food festivals. We hypothesized [hat the purpose was to acquire new customers thru promotional involvement in the festival. A secondary outcome was to ascertain if there were differences in motivation between the three groups. A survey was conducted of participating companies in one of the largest Food & Wine festivals. We found differences in what motivated winery participants from restaurants or other exhibitors. A discussion of these differences and how festival organizers may aid participants in achieving their goals is presented.