Blending digital and physical experiences in luxury wine hospitality: an experiential approach to technology integration

This study explores luxury wine hospitality by considering (1) physical activities and (2) activities created by integrating the physical domain with digital technology. In doing so, it aims to identify the different types of wine tourism-related luxury experiences and build a framework for interpreting hybrid luxury experiences in wine hospitality in the digital era. An explorative mixed-methods approach was adopted to investigate types of luxury wine hospitality using cluster analysis and in-depth interviews with producers of wines with controlled and guaranteed designation of origin in Italy’s Sangiovese area. This study presents a framework for understanding hybrid digital and physical experiences in wine hospitality by examining the core components of luxury experiences. We identify six types of luxury experiences in wine hospitality that combine a physical experiential component with varying degrees of integration with digital technologies. Our findings (1) provide wine businesses operating in hospitality within the luxury segment with a useful tool for optimising the integration of digital technology into physical experiences to add value to visitors’ activities and (2) highlight the importance of digital skills for wineries that organise luxury experiences. This study systematises the integration of digital technologies into physical activities related to wine hospitality. It presents a hybrid physical–digital analytical framework that adopts an experiential outline of the strategic design of wine hospitality businesses.