Clustering the Perceptions of Labelled Actors of the Vallée de la Gastronomie-France

Purpose Vallée de la Gastronomie-France (VG) is a new label-brand-network project applied by the territorial governments of three regions in France: Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur. The purpose of this study was to investigate this project in terms of its business application and labelled actors’ perception. Design/methodology/approach The methodology was based on mixed methods. The qualitative methods included interviews, observations, and study of the job. At the same time, the databases from the Tourism Of-fices were structured according to data clustering methods such as Affinity propagation and DBSCAN. The results were obtained by using Affinity propagation. Findings The study reveals eight clusters of the VG’s labelled actors with a specific attitude toward aggregated attributes which have been selected to describe the project perception. After analysis from experts, they were classified as skeptical, undecided, or supportive toward the VG project. However, each of the clusters has its own distinctive perspective on collaboration, labelling, and the networking process. Practical implications Our findings allowed us to bring about a list of recommendations for the Tourism Offic-es’ managers, who are in charge of relationship making with the labelled actors, as well as for the regional struc-tures which are responsible for the VG’s further development. Social implications From the labelled actors’ point of view, the most valuable meaning was related to partici-pation in the project of the new brand destination, where wine and gastronomy activities are core competences. Originality/value Our paper contributes to the management of the VG by identifying its potential destination