The Virginia Wineries’ Websites: An Evaluation

This paper presents evaluation criteria that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of Virginia wineries websites in the following four different dimensions: (1) general features of a website; (2) wine tourism; (3) marketing; and (4) educational. A total of 182 wineries are analyzed by researchers and the Cohen’s Kappa was computed as an inter-reliability test among raters. Using a dichotomous scale, researchers coded 1 if a particular feature was present in the website and 0 if the feature was not included or it simply failed to meet a minimum standard. Finally, the one-way ANOVA is used to test the hypothesis that wineries located in northern and central Virginia wine clusters will have, on average, higher scores in all four dimensions. The results reveal that the potential of a website has not been fully exploited by many Virginia wineries. Furthermore, the website of the wineries located in the wine clusters did not have higher scores than those scattered around the rest of the state.