Wine and Food Route as a collective mark for wine tourism product: a sequential game

The Wine and Food Routes (WFRs) identify socio-territorial entities, which involve many private and public actors. This paper will take into consideration just wineries and local counties. The purpose is to suggest WFR as a collective (trade)mark for wine tourism. This paper is theoretical and the methodology used concerns a game theoretical approach through which a sequential game of adhesion - exit model has been set-up. This work intends to show whether a WFR can be considered as a collective trademark to study the behavior of the wineries in evaluating to adhere or not to the WFR. The paper will also show that in some cases the adhesion to the WFR can appear to be too rigid for producers influencing in some way the good performance of the WFR itself. Further considerations should be taken regarding the relationship between the local stakeholders when WFR start functioning. The main finding is that the use of a collective trademark for wine tourism entrepreneurs is not always useful. The creation of a collective trademark can be efficient or not as well as the non creation of the mark. Its use can stimulate entrepreneurs to improve the quality of their goods and thus foster competition. The implications concern the fact that alliances among local players acting within WFR can generate improved quality of services, enhanced visibility and cross-marketing activities with other members and the involvement in local events. Furthermore, a strong relationship between entrepreneurs and public institutions in the short run should be a way to reinforce entrepreneurial co-operation and encourage further business development in the long run. The originality of this work regards the use of a game theoretical approach within the wine tourism sector.