Wineconomics Talk Hosted by the School of Hospitality
A team of staff from the IE Business School in Madrid, Spain paid a visit to Sunway University in January 2019. The School of Hospitality was very honoured to receive a distinguished guest, Associate Professor Fernando Cortinas to give a talk on “Wineconomics: A Global View of the International Wine Market”. Prof Fernando was accompanied by Ms Tatiana, Director of IE Business School – Asia Pacific, Ms Doan Trang, Associate Director of IE Business School – Singapore, and Ms Isma Harun, IE Business School Alumni.
Professor Fernando is currently an Associate Professor in the IE Business School (Madrid, Spain), and has been teaching there since 1992. He teaches different courses in the field of marketing, mainly International Marketing, Marketing Strategy & Planning, Marketing & New Technologies, and Marketing for Telco & Digital Business. He has great interest in wine, which led him to travel around the world – Paris, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, to speak and share information about the wine economy.
In his talk, Prof Fernando explained that although there are two wine producing regions in the world, which are the “Old World”, comprising European countries such as France, Spain and Portugal, and the “New World”, being countries in Latin America (Chile and Argentina), South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, branding increasingly plays a significant role in terms of influencing consumer choice. Informatively, he indicated that Spanish wine was impressive as it has the best value for money based on its price-quality ratio.
When Professor Fernando asked the audience, “Which country did wine originate from?”, several “popular” countries were mentioned – France, Germany, Greece, Spain and China. Surprisingly, he indicated that the birthplace of wine is Caucasus, Georgia.
Professor Stephen Hall, Head of Centre for English Language Studies, positively commented on the presentation, stating: “The depth and breadth of data was presented with the clarity of fine, vintage Rioja.” Prof Stephen Hall is also a wine educator, taster and writer.
This was a truly insightful presentation. The School of Hospitality, Sunway University would like to thank Associate Professor Fernando and the visiting team from the IE Business School.
