Value co-cration in tourism experiences

Övrigt konferensbidrag, 2014

The value of tourism from a consumer perspective occurs when the tourist interacts with people, objects, and surroundings before, during and after an experience. However these encounters are not only important for the tourist's value of the experience but it also creates value for the service provider, other tourists, local residents and the destination as a whole. The value occurs in the co-creation, and an understanding of this co-creation of value is a key issue in order to develop theory on tourism experiences. The paper presents an example of how a conceptual grid proposed by Eide and Mossberg (2013) can be used to understand co-creation of value in tourism by referring to a case of destination development in Dunga beach, Kisumu, Kenya. The purpose is to understand different degrees of co-creation in tourism offerings and to give implications for how the grid can be used as a base for developing co-created experiences. The main implications are that the grid visualises the performance of tourism offerings in both a holistic and particular way. By these visualisations it is possible to study and analyse the present state of the tourist offerings as well as to elaborate on movements in the grid to enhance idea generation, which may result in new or improved co-created experiences. Using different types of interactions in the grids reveals for example that the roles of the guides are closely related to and differ depending on the degree of co-creation. In a fully co-created experience, the guides' roles are not only facilitators but as friends on an equal level of knowledge and performance. It also exposes that tourists' interactions with residents are important for mutual understanding, not least in developing countries such as Kenya, where it is seen as important to include local residents in tourism development, from planning to implementation.