Wine Consumption Determinants in Albania Using Categorical Regression Model

The increasing trend of wine consumption in Albania has led the development of the respective subsectors, viticulture and the wine industry. In the order for the domestic wine production industry to be competitive, a detailed understanding of the consumer’s buying behavior is a prerequisite. To this end, this study offers an actual perspective of the consumption behavior of wine customers in Tirana region. One of the goals of this paper is to identify and quantify determinants of wine consumption by using a regression model called “Categorical Regression Estimation” for non-numeric response variables. A questionnaire has been designed for this purpose, which is based on the literature but also on the recognition of the customer profile in the country, considering several socio-economic factors. Through 230 face-to-face interviews, the aim is to evaluate the impact on wine consumption of income, age, education, religion, nutrition culture, wine prices, wine origin as well as other socio-demographic factors related to the profile of the consumer. The analysis and interpretation of the results reveal interesting factors that determine the wine consumption. Age, education, income level and price of the wine are the main factors affecting the consumer decision to buy wine. Older people (over 40 years old) represent 1.4 times higher willingness to buy wine relatively to the younger people. Meanwhile, among people with higher income level chances that they will buy wine are 2.15 higher relatively to the people with lower monthly income level. From the results appears that education have positive impact on wine consumption while gender does not represent a significant difference.