Cultural Routes and Heritage Trails - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 48

number of mining-focused walking trails in national parks and heritage
areas (Drew, 1998).
Agriculture trails
Pellegrini (1999) discussed the viability of developing agritourism routes
in Italy and the role of national and international associations in helping to
develop a network of farming paths. The main focus is agritourism, and the
development of agri-trails could help grow larger scale agritourism in many
parts of Europe. Food trails and wine routes, which are discussed below, are
closely related to agri-trails.
Farm walks are a smaller-scale version of agricultural routes. Farm walks
help communicate farming approaches and practices to all audiences, par-
ticularly those from urban centers where less is known about farming. There
is really a lack of understanding among the general public about what food
production entails, so these farm walks are crucial in educating them, espe-
cially children (Stansfield, 1985: 32).
Food and wine routes
Of all types of tourist trails, wine routes are probably the most often dis-
cussed in the tourism literature. Plentiful case studies and descriptions of vari-
ous wine routes throughout the world abound. A great deal of academic
attention has been directed toward wine tourism in recent years, suggesting its
growing economic importance, regional patterns and images, tourist activities
and satisfaction, and many other variables that define wine tourism. Table 2.3

Table 2.3 Top 15 wine producing countries in the world by volume, 2010

Country Volume (liters)

France 4,626,900

Italy 4,580,000

Spain 3,609,700

United States 2,653,187

Argentina 1,625,000

Australia 1,073,000

Germany 932,000

South Africa 922,000

Chile 884,000

Portugal 587,200

Russia 540,000

Romania 495,740

China 425,000

Moldova 410,000

Greece 336,560

Source: Compiled from Wine Institute (2013).