The GastroTour Stakeholder Engagement Workshop and project management meeting was successfully held on 17–22 November 2025 in South Africa, hosted by Stellenbosch University, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) , project SA industry partner Creation and funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

The workshop brought together academic partners, wine industry representatives, and tourism experts from Europe, Georgia, and South Africa. It marked an important milestone in the GastroTour project’s mission to develop innovative digital educational tools to support the transformation of regional wine and culinary tourism industries.

Participants explored a wide range of topics, including:

·        The future of wine and cuisine tourism

·        Skills development in the South African wine industry

·        Sustainability “from farm to fork”

·        The current state of wine–cuisine enterprises

·        Multi-sensory pairing methodologies

Highlights included keynote presentations about the South African wine and gastrotourism potentials, project development sessions at CPUT’s Wellington Campus, and a multi-sensory master class at Creation Wines in Hermanus. Participants also visited Pebbles Academy to learn about community-focused initiatives.

The workshop strengthened university–industry collaboration and marked an important milestone in advancing the GastroTour project’s digital training tools for sustainable tourism development.

The workshop achieved its goal of deepening cross-regional collaboration, strengthening university–industry partnerships, and advancing the development of digital tools for sustainable tourism and wine-industry capacity building.

Further updates on the project’s progress and next steps will be shared in the coming months.

The project GASTROTOUR is coordinated by Telavi State University and  besides other Geeorgian partners  includes partners from South Africa and Europe.