Croatian wine tourism from the winery perspective: the case of the Grand Cro

The paper focuses on the importance of wine tourism and explores how Croatian premium small to medium-size wineries can successfully expand into wine tourism and thus enhance and expand their core business activity. In order to access the required data, a survey questionnaire was created, conducted, and analyzed. The sample consists of eight premium Croatian wine estates that form The Grand Cro and encompass: Baković, Bibich, Boškinac, Duboković, Galić, Meneghetti, Petrač, and Saint Hill. The research conducted has proved that vintners have justifiable reason to include transition to wine tourism into their future medium-term development strategy because it might help them to drive bottle sales and increases the number of tourists visiting their wineries. More so, through the development of complementary tourist-oriented services, wineries might enhance their brand loyalty and awareness, creating a positive image of their wine product, and consequently the wine region.