The Role of Websites in Promoting Wine Tourism: An Evaluation of Romanian Wineries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

enotourism is a not so young, but very promising direction of tourism activities, which also generates benefits to wine producers and local communities. In other words, it is related to sustainable socio-economical development. Indeed, its growth depends on many factors and solutions, and its promotion in Internet is really promising. The reviewed manuscript raises good questions about the quality on information of wine tourism distributed on-line and answers them with a representative and really novel (worth to study!) example from Romania. The manuscript uses a well-developed and well-argued methodology, and it is informative. The practical importance of the findings is undisputable. The work leaves a very positive and fresh impression, but, of course, it needs certain amendments to become as strong and well-shaped as it deserves to be.

1)      Abstract: please, modify it with more attention to your findings and their interpretations and less attention to general, introductory aspects.

2)      Key words: wine tourism -> enotourism.

3)      Introduction: please, explain (may be with citations) why wine tourism can be useful to wine producers and grape agriculture.

4)      Fig. 1 has three different images. They should be labeled as A,B,C and explained in the caption.

5)      Table 1 is excellent, but I’d replace “Education” with any more suitable word.

6)      Line 255-258: you do not need to highlight the word “limitation”. In my opinion, the main limitation is a certain subjectivity of the analysis, which is unavoidable and does not diminish the importance of this study.

7)      Line 309 and below: this seems to be a supplementary analysis, which is out of place. Well, you have two alternative options: please, a) move all methodological explanations to a new section of the methodological section and split “Results” into subsections where one is reserved to the outcomes of this analysis; OR b) move all this text to “Discussion”.

8)      Discussion: please, split this section into four subsections: 5.1: Lines 344-388, 5.2: the explanation of your findings in the context of the international research experience (how they are related to what is known from the other countries, what is the theoretical importance of your findings?), 5.3: Lines 390-427 (also tell who should organize all these activities and how costly would be the recommended solutions? – maintaining good, multi-language, interactive web-page is not cheap and requires special skills and a lot of time), 5.4: conclusive remarks with notions of limitations and research perspectives. Another subsection may appear if you follow the option b specified in the previous comment.

9)      Discussion: what to do with digital (and not only!) skills of winemakers and how to ensure them in the need of enotourism in their own business? How and who should be involved in the increase of this “literacy”? – May be some professional associations or the state?

10)  Discussion: as your manuscript is submitted to “Sustainability”, you have to write something about the relevance of your study to sustainable development.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The writing is generally perfect, but some additional polishing can help.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments to the Authors:

 

Dear authors, first I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to review your article. After a thorough analysis of the manuscript, I would like to provide some constructive suggestions to enhance the clarity and impact of your work:

 

 

1. Introduction

 

“Nowadays, in a digital era, a strong online presence is indispensable for wineries seeking to work out the potential of wine tourism. Websites serve as the virtual storefronts through which wineries can present their offerings, engage with potential visitors, and ultimately can attract potential tourists to their physical locations for specific tasting activities.

Researching the role of websites in promoting wine tourism involves understanding the significance of online presence and its impact on attracting visitors and enhancing business opportunities.”

 

Reviewer: These kinds of statements need to be backed up with previous literature. The authors need to refer to recent studies that explore the potential of the digital world in wine tourism. A quick search of the main databases reveals some studies such as that by Sousa et al., 2024 - (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2024.101235), this article studied the use of new digital equipment, which allows virtual experiences to be carried out to promote wine tourism. According to this study, this type of virtual equipment has an influence on wine tourists' decision making for a destination or wine tourism activity. On the other hand, the authors should reinforce which gap in the literature they are responding to, explaining the importance of carrying out this study.

 

 

2. Theoretical background

2.3. Technological tools and the (wine) tourism industry

 

Reviewer: The literature review is very well prepared and coherent. However, in point 2.3, in order to increase the scientific contribution, the authors should inform the reader about what kind of advances have been made on this subject, for example the study by (Losada et al., 2022 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9268-0_49) which compared the promotional effect of video comparatively to other more advanced digital tools, such as virtual reality. According to this study, more advanced technological mechanisms such as virtual reality can apply a more effective promotional effect on tourists than more traditional methods, such as video.

 

 

3. Materials and Methods

 

3.2. Methodology

 

Reviewer: The authors need to better justify the use of this type of methodology, indicating which previous studies have used or recommend this type of methodology and how it guarantees the validity of the results.

 

5. Discussion

 

Reviewer: Although the authors clearly present the main results, it is suggested that the authors discuss the main results obtained, i.e. it is hoped that these results will be discussed with previous studies, so that it will be easier for the reader to understand the real contribution of this study. In addition, the authors are expected to present the study's main conclusions, limitations, and future lines of research.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English language just needs a minor revision.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors The article "The Role of Websites in Promoting Wine Tourism: An Evaluation of Romanian Wineries" concerns the nowadays important issue of using technological solutions in the promotion of enterprises, and in this case also in the promotion of tourism and the region. The authors point out the existing shortcomings in an issue as prosaic as the ownership of websites and their content, which certainly backfires on the wineries themselves.   Most of the literature cited comes from recent years.   The article is constructed in an interesting way. Apart from the important substantive note at the end of the review, I noticed a few editing issues, the improvement of which may improve the quality of the article:
- there is no information about the sources of the images included in the article,
- line 197 - scientific articles tend to avoid writing in the form of "our research..." in favor of phrases such as "the authors' research...",
- lines 200, 203, 315, 319 - there should probably be commas at the ends instead of dots,
- line 312 - colon used, although there are dashes in the following points,
- line 316 - semicolon in brackets instead of closed quotation marks,
- line 322 - nothing at the end of the line,
- lines 326, 357 - after the abbreviation "no" there should be a dot,
- line 390 - it seems reasonable to give this part a subchapter number,
- I encourage you to make individual subsections more visible, e.g. by leaving 1 empty line above them - currently the text is very blurred, which negatively affects its readability.
With regard to the advantages of winery promotion - looking at the cited sources, it is difficult to deny the presented advantages of winery promotion. However, I have the impression that the view on this issue is quite one-sided. Looking comprehensively and carefully, one should remember that wine is an alcohol that involves a number of risks - mantioned hiking, cycling, or even moving by car from one winery to another and taking advantage of the full offer of the vineyard seem to be often even mutually exclusive issues. Pretending that the issue does not exist may ultimately backfire on wineries. I think it is worth mentioning at least in a few sentences (for example in recommendations) the need for wineries to pay attention to this issue - for example by posting educational materials on their websites, promoting public transport that would replace the need for tourists to use their own cars, etc.   I also don't see any major reference to the impact of the topic on sustainable development in the article...   I encourage you to consider the above issues when publishing the final version of the article.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is well done and clear in the logical development.

Anyway some corrections can be made to make it clearer to the reading even of a researcher not experienced in the methodology adopted. All suggestions are in the attached revisited file.

In general: some latest references could be quoted. I suggest only an example, but the geographical recent literature is full of contribution. A limitation of the paper is that A. use principaly business/marketing literature. They should integrate it.

Another limit, derived from this approach, is that the users/consumers are not anlysed. This is tipical of the business  method, but not of the geographical one.the A. could discuss this missing.

the adopted methodological approach (netnography) needs to be better descripted.

Finaly: where are the annexes?

Minor revisions concern the missed sources in tables and figures, to include as "Authors elaboration", or the adjustment of some references in the final list.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

You have significantly improved your manuscript and have suggested that it be accepted for publication.

Good luck!