Barossa's pearls signpost for NZ tourism drive

By DITA DE BONI

The Lutherans who escaped religious persecution in Germany in the early 1800s for the rolling flats of South Australia probably little realised they would lay the foundations of a wine tourism Mecca.

The Barossa Valley, a patch of grape-growing land 30km by 15km two hours' drive north of Adelaide, is still manned by some of the descendants of those pioneers, but a busy cottage industry has developed into lucrative tourism.

A carefully regulated group of 540 vignerons market both the produce of the region's soils and the historical legacy of nearly two centuries of winemaking to more than 200,000 day visitors a year.

But success has not fallen into their laps. "Brand Barossa" is the result of regional repackaging, according to local delegates at this week's wine tourism conference, held in the heart of the valley.

From around a decade ago, when Barossa was a "has-been" on both the wine and wine tourism scenes, the region has regained a great deal of its former glory by focusing on the history of the region and tight regulation to preserve its niche market position.

It produces about 21 per cent of Australia's 8 billion litres of wine a year and is home to several of Australia's largest producers, including Penfolds and Orlando.

"[Around] five or six years ago things were crook here," says Robert O'Callaghan, owner of local winery Rockford Wines. "There had been a boom time for this region in the 1950s, resulting in an oversupply to the market [of Barossa wine]. We came to be seen as old-fashioned, industrial - yesterday's region."

In fact, the Government offered Barossa growers financial incentives to pull up their vines to stop a glut of the region's famous shiraz. Several growers resisted the move and Barossa shiraz is popular again. In the early 1990s pressure mounted to turn the area into an outer suburb of Adelaide.

A "vinylhosen" flavour - a mixture of 70s tack and Germanic nostalgia - further hindered the region's image. As one source put it, "formica tables, large groups touring through ... mess! It was seen as industrial region, in more ways than one."

The area formed a wine tourism association in 1993 to protect Brand Barossa and lobby for a freeze on development. Local winemakers now contribute about $A200,000 a year to bolster overseas marketing, on top of levies paid to a national body to promote Australian wine exports.

"It was an enormously difficult plan and hard work building a brand, but the key to its success was our influence on local government planning," says Mr O'Callaghan. Accommodation, for example, needed to be developed to create the necessary infrastructure, but it did not mean open slather for operators, he says.

The valley now boasts one five-star resort, but has declined permission for other hotels to be built (including a pink cylindrical high rise) and opted to support a flourishing B&B industry instead, "more in keeping with the landscape."

Signs around the valley to help tourists find their way, as well as food and wine trails and attractions such as nature walks have added to the winery experience.

One winemaker told the Business Herald that wineries had largely banned tourist buses from the cellar doors to stop groups of "city yobs" exploiting free samples and leaving gastric imprints across manicured lawns.

Stephan Couche, sales and marketing director for Barossa's - and indeed Australia's - most famous brand, Jacob's Creek, says the most important thing to do is "weave a brand into the emotional fabric of a culture."

More than 4 million cases of Jacob's Creek wine were sold last year, and that brand name alone has been a huge drawcard for international tourists, who flock to have their photos taken beside the original Jacob's Creek.

The region as a whole has revisited its Lutheran past with events that evoke the community feel of old harvest times and feature oom-pa-pa music.

Its cultural distinctiveness is heavily emphasised in international tourism promotions.

"While Brand Australia is about a range of experiences, Barossa is about a central experience centred around wine and events," says Barossa Wine and Tourism Association chief executive Barry Salter.

"Our strength is that we live the experience each day of wine, and in a highly competitive wine market it is critical to retain that distinctive flavour."

But not everyone thinks Barossa is doing enough to capture the imagination of the international tourist.

Eve Zibart, a Washington-based wine critic and tour-guide writer, says Barossa needs to develop "new markets, new media and new mindsets" to take advantage of the foreign crowds.

"South Australia is on the verge of becoming a major tourism opportunity - the area and its wines are very, very hot right now overseas," she says.

"It's the first generation when travel to Australia has become easy, combined with the relatively low value of the Aussie dollar, but I see the opportunities to cash in on this fantastic opportunity slipping away."

Ms Zibart says that one of the biggest mistakes made in the region is an emphasis on marketing the trails to the 50-plus crowd.

"The consumers in their 20s have a lot of disposable cash and are looking to experience something new. They may be the low-end buyers now, but they won't be in a few years."

MTV, for example, would be a great forum for advertising tours designed for the younger crowd, she says, "and then [Barossa] could consider educational tours, wine and food tours, grandparent and grandkid tours - very popular in the States right now - or gay groups, for example.

"The possibilities are endless."

Hawkes Bay vigneron Graeme Avery sees a similar disproportionate marketing plan in New Zealand.

"We just don't try hard enough to get the young people in - it's a vitally important market where we can establish a love of wine that will last a lifetime," he says.

But the modern wine consumer is looking for a total experience that includes wine, food and suitable accommodation, according to tourism delegates attending the Barossa conference.

For New Zealand, a system that would allow easy access to the regional winemaking areas as diverse as Hawkes Bay, Waiheke Island, Marlborough and Canterbury requires a combined approach by transport operators, restaurateurs, wineries and tourism authorities.

Vito Lo Iocono of Air New Zealand says the airline has taken some marketing lessons from Australian wine tourism.

The airline surveyed more than 450 wineries in 1998 to gauge how an integrated marketing effort would work, and selected several to feature in a specially created "teaser" brochure distributed to overseas agents.

"At first the [wineries] weren't too keen. They said, 'We make wine, we don't want busloads of tourists, we don't want to destroy our premises'."

Now, he says, most are champing at the bit to join "Destination New Zealand" promotions.

Air New Zealand and the Wine Institute of New Zealand are collaborating on the idea of kick-starting a more thorough wine tourism network.

"Unfortunately, in New Zealand we have some organisations that don't work together, unlike the Barossa, where the community works very closely together," he says. "We need to create an industry-wide marketing arm that covers both wine and wine tourism.

"We could provide a similar experience to [Barossa] in each wine-making area of New Zealand," he says. "We could signpost each region really well.

"We need to provide more information to appeal internationally, and it will come from a collaboration of all related industries."