Wine Tourism Innovation

Overview

The Wine Tourism Innovation programme from Rovira i Virgili University offers a truly integrated study programme which combines the expertise in Tourism and Oenology of three universities and regions: Rovira i Virgili University (URV, Spain), University of Bordeaux (UB, France), and University of Porto (UP, Portugal). These universities are located in highly attractive touristic areas, recognised with the label of human heritage by UNESCO, and with a long tradition on wine, producing speciality wines, such as sparkling, fortified, aged red and sweet wines. The training programme is clearly multi-disciplinary and also multisectorial.

The programme covers the absence of a new profession that requires multi-disciplinary and multi-sectorial knowledge and training, while increasing their understanding of wine making and tourism management. High-quality practical training in entrepreneurship and company management is provided by involving the students in internships in the non-academic sector.

The teaching programme includes modules on Wine Tourism and Marketing, Wine Making (mostly focused on sparkling, aged, sweet and fortified wines), Wine heritage, and three different types of internships (on winemaking, marketing, and oenotourism), with the active participation of the non-academic partners in the student training.

Career

Graduates may be eligible for positions in the following areas:

• Private sector: creation of start-ups and business initiatives taking wine as a tourist attraction and tourism as a means for promoting wine and wine regions; management of the international activity of private firms from the wine industry in relation to their marketing strategy and development of wine tourism activities; specialised consultancy in the design and development of new strategies for increasing the competitiveness of the wine sector.

• Public administration: positions in public organisations responsible of the planning, management and promotion of wine tourism products at local, national and international level.

• Research and teaching: participation and leadership of multidiscipliary research teams in the fields of oenology and tourism, either in public or private research organisations.