The Distillery Survey shows that production sites already behave like visitor brands. Across the sample, most sites already offer experiences in some form. There are tours to book, rooms to host and products to taste onsite. Yet many treat tourism as an “extra” rather than the engine room for growth or a channel in its own right.
Flip that and the opportunity to tighten the path from profitable visits to steady repeat purchase and increased advocacy becomes clear. With a saturated market in wholesale channels and ailing hospitality sector – doing so may prove to be a lifeline for small teams and rural businesses.
Moreover, give tiny teams the tools and support to run tourism offerings and production side by side and the data suggests that you’ll improve the site’s sustainability initiatives too.
This article unpacks what the distillery census points toward: the need to design tourism as a core route to market and why visibility drives sustainability.
We’ll keep the top-line insight up front, then (like the other survey insight articles) close with practical actions for three audiences: distillers, associations, and government/LEPs/DMOs.
The aim is simple: use the data to help inform how turn what’s already on site into a flywheel that pays twice.
Distillery Tourism has far more potential
Tourism already matters for a large minority, yet visitor volumes are modest. Tourism contributes >25% of income for 25.6% of sites, yet 63.6% host <1,000 visitors a year.
Compare that to statistics in rural destination sites, wineries and other countries – it’s fair to say that it is an execution gap, not a demand gap.
The tourism infrastructure already exists and distilling isn’t a sector starting from zero. A majority already offer experiences: roughly 60% run bookable tours; ~63% offer private/group bookings; about 55% allow tastings or walk-ins; ~52% have in-house bars or shops; nearly 49% run cocktail or tasting events.
That’s a national base to build trails, passports and regional “taste routes” on.
Doing so would be exactly the kind of coordinated programming that lifts both yield per visitor and off-site repeat orders. It would increase overall revenues without trying to push additional volume in other segments of the route to market, which the results suggest is saturated and inaccessible.
Improvements around tour windows, media outreach and visibility, handovers between front-of-house and production, and data capture for every visitor would help.
But specifics aside, a mindset that treats experiences as a channel of its own is key. It is important that more see bookable tours and tastings as a feed for CRM and brand building. This in turn feeds digital D2C. That combination would be a big win for small operations and result in far more activity to boost visitor numbers.
The point is simple: Distillery tourism lags behind other comparable sectors, despite the fact that so many offer ‘something’. There is a clear opportunity to do better given the infrastructure is there. Saturdays should fund the margins; mid-week mails should keep the relationship going long after the experience is over and volume going through the post.
Tourism also drives sustainability
Visitors see what you do – upcycling, reducing, refill stations, energy and waste choices are all on show. Unsurprisingly then, the data shows an undeniable correlation. Experience-led sites tend to move faster and further.
In the responses who stated that tourism is “very significant,” around 95% of those sites also report taking sustainability action. Where tourism was less important, that figure drops to ~74%.
This tracks to the reality we all know – in small plants (often running ≤500 L batches) the fastest and easiest steps are often eco-visible. That creates a clean brief for DMOs and LEPs: co-fund eco-visible visitor upgrades (accessibility, water/energy systems, waste/refill stations etc) and you get two wins in one spend—stronger visitor experiences and measurable footprint reductions.
Sustainability you can see (and measure)
Looking at sustainability more broadly and in its own right – the industry is engaged. Across cuts of the data, the majority are already acting on sustainability, and a substantial share say those actions are significant.
95% say they have acted (54.3% “significant”; 41.1% “some”). Interestingly, the blockers are entirely practical, not philosophical. Infrastructure cost (25.6%) and time/resource (24.8%) are cited as the main obstacles; “lack of guidance” is only 10.9%.
And if producers know what they need to do, the move now isn’t more how-to PDFs; it’s helping hands and hardware. For example, co-funded install time and kit that shrink utilities per litre or do better at closing loops for by-products, co-products and green initiatives.
USING THE DATA – WHAT TO DO NEXT AT A GLANCE
For distillers
Make tourism a channel, not a distraction.
Tourism is already meaningful but comparative to the numbers being achieved by rural sites of interest (National Parks, Heritage England sites etc.) that are often next door to distillers and it’s evident that with the right offering, there is more room to grow. Compare it to Kentucky and it’s even more stark, meanwhile, look to Tasmania, Portland, Argentinian wine trails and urban collabs in Canada and it’s easy to see what can be done at micro level to improve numbers.
Time to lean in to collaboration, and tie experiences to bookable bundles and D2C follow-ups.
Where possible, look sideways to those other regions and US/AUS distilling for the inspiration on what’s possible and the type of offerings that hit the mark with curious drinkers. So much of their offerings are tethered to an understanding of what a visitor might do elsewhere before and after stopping at a distillery.
How your experiences fit into the consumer’s context and to the broader picture they face defines so much of the success.
Let sustainability pay twice (and show it).
Action is near-universal. 95% have taken steps but the bottlenecks are infrastructure cost (25.6%) and time/resource (24.8%), not “lack of guidance” (10.9%).
It’s not easy to find the time or the capital and all steps towards more sustainable distilling are positive, no matter how small. Keep going!
Weaponise the progress you are making in visitor-facing ops (sight-lines, signage, refill policies) to turn sustainability into brand equity. Communicating about it will help justify any Capex spend with ticket yield and conversion. The correlation is clear – Tourism and sustainability reinforce each other. Use that as a way to make one pot of cash work to add value to both.
Build visit-to-digital handshakes.
In-person D2C was voted the #1 route for many (40.3% rank it first) of the 133 survey entries. But it doesn’t need to stop there. Use tours and tastings to drive owned channels: post-visit sequences, and limited editions and bundles tied to the story guests just heard.
Meanwhile, if you’re using platforms with long settlements like Amazon as well as your own shops, lobby for duty-timing relief. (More on that elsewhere)
For associations
Fund hands and hardware, not more roadmaps.
As outlined above, the census shows action is already widespread and the hurdles are infrastructure cost and time/resource burden.
That’s a clear brief: co-fund install time, expertise and kit and centralise implementation support so small teams aren’t losing production hours to project-manage upgrades.
Make tourism a shared platform, not a solo effort.
Tourism already delivers >25% of income for 25.6% of sites. Yet 63.6% host <1,000 visitors a year. The offer already exists—59.5% run bookable tours; ~50–63% offer tastings, events, bars or shops; 62.7% host private bookings. The headroom is in orchestration.
Associations are the neutral ground to build trails, visitor passports and co-owned calendars. They can align campaigns and standardise basics (safety brief, FOH handovers, email capture).
One site is one voice; ten sites become a destination. Treat joint programming as a route-to-market tool that drives multilayered value for all. Higher on-site conversion and a larger, shared CRM that compounds into digital D2C between visits.
For LEPs, DMOs & government
Co-fund visitor economy plays for high ROI.
The growth headroom in tourism that distilleries represent is a direct way to boost local communities. Distilleries sit in mostly in rural/remote places (56.6% rural; 7.8% remote). These sites also hire locally (86.8% source ≥75% of staff within 50 miles). Given the trickle down effect of visitors spending in local hospitality, combined with the way the distillery employs, participates and integrates into its community year round – a huge % of every extra visitor pound recirculates on the doorstep.
Back campaigns that turn distilleries into mapped destinations. Assist with signposting, trails and creating joint calendars. Celebrate them in regional drives. It’s a fast path to increasing incremental spend in towns and supply chains around the sites actually generating the value.
Use tourism to accelerate sustainability. One budget, two wins.
The sector has already acted and is pursuing environmental measures. The most cited bottleneck preventing more is infrastructure cost (25.6%). Where tourism matters, producers are incentivised to show visible, practical steps because visitors see (and reward) them.
If there is a way to co-fund eco-visible visitor upgrades, one grant stream will deliver two policy goals – lower footprints and stronger local demand.
