RICHLAND, Wash. –  No one went to Oktoberfest in 2020, but chances are those who attended in the past are still thinking about it.

In a case study of the famous German beer festival, researchers tested the theory that events which create memorable experiences can increase life-satisfaction. This deep connection with customers has big benefits for associated businesses, according to Robert Harrington, lead author of the study recently published online in the .

“If you can do something that transforms people even a little bit, it can have a huge impact on the success of your company and your brand,” said Harrington, professor and director of the School of Hospitality Management at Washington State University Carson College of Business. “The more customers are delighted, the more likely they are to be return customers. They are also more likely to give positive recommendations to friends and relatives, and particularly on social media. In today’s environment, people trust those reviews more than paid advertising.”

For the study, the researchers surveyed more than 820 people attending a festival beer tent over several days of the 2018 Oktoberfest. The majority of the respondents were male (56.8%) and largely German, though roughly 12% were from outside the country, including from Italy and the United States. The respondents answered questions related to food and beverage quality, connectedness, experience uniqueness, memorability and life satisfaction.

When the researchers analyzed the relationship among those answers, they found that connectedness to Oktoberfest, such as feeling a close association with a particular beer tent or to Oktoberfest traditions, influenced impressions of food and beverage quality and the uniqueness of the experience. These in turn influenced how highly the participants felt that attending the event increased their overall satisfaction with life.

The researchers purposely chose to study the annual beer festival in Munich because it is so well-known and brings together a mix of tourism and hospitality services.

“Oktoberfest has a very strong brand. It’s almost like a bucket-list event,” said Harrington. “As a significant event in visitors’ lives, there’s a greater likelihood that there’s a quantifiable measure of life satisfaction or sense of well-being from those experiences, as opposed to people going out to a neighborhood bar or restaurant.”

Emulating Oktoberfest, which attracts more than 7 million visitors a year, may be a tall order, but the researchers suggest that other businesses can learn from its success. Breweries or wineries can create regional or local events on a smaller scale. Like Oktoberfest, these events could bundle goods and services, such as a tasting that pairs beer or wine with food or adding an experience like a music performance or art show.

The idea is to invite customers to participate in creating a memorable experience that lasts, Harrington said.

“Once people go back home, they will want to bring up that memory again,” said Harrington. “They will go buy that beer because they went to a festival where they had a great time.”

This study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences and the Munich University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

 

Media contacts:

• Robert Harrington, School of Hospitality Management, ���سԹ�, 509-372-7487, rharrington@wsu.edu
• Sara Zaske, WSU News and Media Relations, 509-335-4846, sara.zaske@wsu.edu

By Maegan Murray, ���سԹ�

RICHLAND, Wash. –  Taste might have less to do with what consumers are willing to pay for wine than you think.

In fact, a series of tests showed that non taste-related factors may play a larger role in how much consumers are willing to pay for wine in Hong Kong, compared with their western counterparts.

The trend was revealed in a study by university researchers from Washington state, Minnesota, Hong Kong and Korea. The blind taste experiment was conducted in Hong Kong to analyze consumers’ willingness to pay based on several factors.

Project researchers included Byron Marlowe, a clinical assistant professor in hospitality business management at Washington State University Tri-Cities, and colleagues at the University of Minnesota, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Gyeongsang National University in Korea. Their results are presented in the fall issue of the .

Three stages of research

The test was administered in three stages.

Stage 1: A purely blind tasting test, in which participants received no information about the wine.

State 2: Participants were provided with the wine’s country of origin prior to the tasting.

Stage 3:  Full information on the wines, including attributes such as grape variety, region and winery of origin, were provided before tasting.

During each tasting, participants were asked to taste and rate each wine according to selected attributes and assign their “willingness-to-pay” for that particular wine. Six wines — three reds and three whites, with similar price points, from five different countries and six different regions — were served in each stage. The wine originated from the following areas:

• Western Cape, South Africa
• Iowa, USA
• Rheingau, Germany
• Rioja, Spain
• Wisconsin, USA
• Argentina

“Most of the wines did fairly well in the first treatment, when all of the individuals were completely blind to the wine details,” Marlowe said. “But they do worse when revealed that the wines are from regions that they are not as familiar with or with varietals that they aren’t familiar with.”

Pre-taste factors that impact willingness to pay

Researchers found that revealing the country and region of origin of the wines from Iowa and Wisconsin had a negative effect on how much participants were willing to pay per bottle. Customers indicated they would be willing to pay an average of $2.70 to $4.80 less per bottle than the designated stated retail price for the wines.

For example, if the wine’s stated retail price was $24, then the customer would be willing to pay potentially $2.70 to $4.80 less than that price, or $21.30 or $19.20 per bottle.

Marlowe said this is probably because those regions are not widely known as wine grape-growing regions, and also not for wine production.

“All of a sudden, when participants know they’re drinking a wine from the Midwest, where cold and hardy varietals are grown, their immediate response is to rate it lower than wine from a more well-known region,” he said.

Similar results were shown for the wines from Germany and Argentina, although further analysis found the two countries to be less effected by perception of region.

Researchers also realized that female participants in the study seemed to have higher willingness to pay than males. Younger consumers also appeared to have higher willingness to pay than older consumers.

Additionally, “novice drinkers” or those who had wine rarely or less than once a month, relied mainly on country of origin information in their wine evaluations, as compared to “expert consumers” or those who drink wine more than once a week and who relied more on sensory quality or taste, according to results of the study.

Asian vs. western market perceptions

Although results of Hong Kong participants follow similar trends as those who participated in similar studies in western countries, results also suggest that cues unrelated to taste play a larger role in the evaluation of wine in the Asian market, especially for novice wine drinkers, as compared to western societies.

Marlowe said these points warrant attention as wine consumption and popularity continues to grow in Asia, and specifically Hong Kong.

“Teachers, wine scientists and marketers can use these details when marketing wines for Asian countries, as well as in educating individuals in those areas about wine origins and attributes,” Marlowe said. “A wine produced in the Midwest in the United States may be a premium wine, but if there is a perception that it is less than, we need to overcome those factors through marketing and business tactics to help promote those wines.”