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.”

By Maegan Murray, ���سԹ�

RICHLAND, Wash. – Yichien Cooper, adjunct professor of teaching and learning at Washington State University Tri-Cities, is showing the world that arts education is more than the creation of physical and digital media through her work in growing international partnerships across the globe.

Cooper traveled to Asia this summer to create and build upon international partnerships in arts education where she presented at conferences and provided workshops in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. During these presentations, she worked with arts educators and researchers from around the world, discussing ways to bridge gaps in arts education. She said instilling arts-based academic programming among STEM-based programming is critical to growing a students’ problem-solving and innovative ability.

“Art isn’t just art,” she said. “It is the confluence of ideas that come from many different experiences and knowledge that one obtains throughout their life. When applied to subjects like science and engineering, for example, that is when products and initiatives develop that continue to change the world.”

Leading by example

Cooper said many Asian nations are now trying to catch up on American standards for pairing the arts with technical and science-based academics. The United States, she said, began a focused philosophy to include arts with STEM fields, combining the old “STEM” acronym to make “STEAM.”

She said countries in Asia have witnessed the successes of companies ranging from Microsoft, to Apple, to scientific and medical firms that have

taken the world by storm by means of developing products and apparatuses that originated out of creative real-world problem-solving.

“What research has shown is that with the introduction of arts concepts among these technical fields, children thrive in their creative product development, their teamwork ability and their ability to think long-term to come up with creative solutions to real-world problems,” she said. “It’s a tool that is effective in bridging across curricular areas and improving learning.”

Cooper said other countries are emphasizing how arts can enrich students’ learning. With the popularity of STEAM education, they are looking up to what American students are able to accomplish through that creative process.

“They want to collaborate and implement those strategies within their own schools,” she said.

Presenting to countries across Asia

During her travels in Asia, Cooper gave a range of presentations focusing on how to incorporate the arts into various academic fields.

One of her presentations focused on integrating arts at Washington State University Tri-cities, providing highlights from her upcoming Chinese book, “The Power of Integration” which will be out in November in China. During another presentation, Cooper talked about her work partnering with local schools in the Tri-Cities to develop their arts programming in combination with STEM curriculum. Cooper also spoke about her journey as an art advocator in Richland at the 36^th International Society for Education Through Art World Congress in Daegu, Korea..

Cooper spoke to educators and individuals from various industries on improving visual literacy and research through data visualization. As the chair of the data visualization working group for the National Art Education Association Research Commission, she said it is important to create visual representations of information that is easy and accessible for all to understand and ingest, making it more accessible to the non-technical expert in that field.

Cooper also conducted hands-on workshops that were organized by the Art Education Research Institute in Taiwan, Art Education Training Center at Foshan in China, and the Hong Kong Society of Education in Art.

Further, Cooper used her experience abroad to build partnerships with local students overseas. She worked with teachers at Shang-Shi Elementary School in Taiwan, where both groups hope to partner to develop joint curriculum for arts education.

“We could have the students in Taiwan showing our American students what their art and arts curriculum looks like and our American students can share with them what art looks like in America,” she said. “Our ultimate challenge is the time difference, so we might go for a video-based route and exchange videos, as well as talk about each other’s daily life and how they are similar and different.  Shang-Shi strives to provide global education to children’s life, being able to assist them finding opportunities for students only shows that we are living in a global village.”

Looking toward the future of arts education

As the Acting President of World Chinese Art Education Association, Cooper will organize the International Society for Education Through Art Asia Regional Congress in 2018 in Hong Kong with colleague Solan Wong, of the Education University of Hong Kong, and Kaitak Kwong, president of the Hong Kong Society of Education in Art.

Focusing on collaborative efforts to sustain greater arts education community, she said the conference aims to welcome groups from throughout Asia and south-east Asia. The congress will focus on the theme of “challenges and transformations,” or CT for short in connection to the type of body scan, and the goal will be to evaluate the next steps for arts education and embracing challenges within current educational systems.

“So many countries individually write their teaching standards, training standards and curriculum,” she said. “The fact that we can come together and work collaboratively and share ideas is a huge win for education. We all have a common goal that is focusing not only on the immediate results for our students, but the long-term value of their education. That is a good change.”

Cooper said it is true that many schools across the world have slowly began to narrow their scope on art, but through these types of international partnerships, arts associations around the globe hope that individuals will see the value and significance of arts in education, especially when combined with the traditional STEM fields.

“We need to make art visible,” she said. “Art brings people together. It transcends gender, age and physical boundaries and it’s an important part of a student’s education.”