Co - Creation in Tourist Experiences Contemporary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism and Mobility Series

The tourist experience is multi-faceted and dynamic, as tourists engage with its formation and creation. The tourists then become vital in creating value for themselves together with the service provider. Experience value cannot be pre-produced, but is co-created between host and guest(s) in the servicescape. The tourist managers can therefore only plan for and facilitate for value co-creation to take place.

This book responds to the need for a critical review of how firms can facilitate and dramatize for enhanced experience value for tourists. As the roles of participants and providers are changing rapidly, new knowledge in terms of how value creation and value co-creation can transpire needs to be generated. The aim of this book is therefore to accentuate the role and importance of the core elements in value creation processes, namely, the customer(s), the setting in which co-creation would take place, and the provider.

Bringing together scholars from diverse areas to address the nature of how the actors co-create values through interaction in different experience settings, the book also serves as a guide to the best practice of co-creation of tourist experiences. It will therefore appeal practically as well as theoretically to scholars and students of tourism, marketing, leisure, hospitality, and services management.

List of illustrations

Notes on contributors

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Tourist experience creation: an overview

Nina K. Prebensen, Joseph S. Chen and Muzaffer S. Uysal

2. Creating emotional platforms

Sandra Gountas

3. Designing and managing co-creative processes in a holiday environment: the case of French Northern Alpine ski resorts

Isabelle Frochot and Dominique Kreziak

4. Staging for value co-creation in nature-based experiences: the case of a surfing course at Surfers Paradise, Australia

Nina K. Prebensen

5. Designing forest-based wellbeing tourism services for Japanese customers: a case study from Finland

Raija Komppula and Henna Konu

6. Innovation potentials through value proposals: a case study of a museum in northern Norway

Nina K. Prebensen

7. Value co-created in geothermal tourism: the case of the 'ryokan' industry in Japan

Timothy Lee

8. Value creation through heritage and identity

Ruhet Genc

9. Gastronomy in a co-creation context

Ruhet Genc

10. Co-creating customer experience: the role of employees in tourism and hospitality services

Prakash K. Chathoth, Eric S. W. Chan, Robert J. Harrington, Fevzi Okumus and Zibin Song

11. Co-creating the sightseeing experience with and without a guide

Anita Zátori

12. Creating value with seasonal workers through psychological contracts

Kristin Woll

13. Challenges and research directions in co-creatingtourism experience

Joseph S. Chen, Muzaffer S. Uysal and Nina K. Prebensen

Index

Nina K. Prebensen is a Professor at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway. She also holds a 20% position at the University College of South East Norway. She has published papers in various tourism journals. Her research particularly highlights the tourist decision and experience processes, where co-creation of value for hosts and guests are in focus.

Joseph S. Chen is Professor in Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. His research foci entail tourism marketing, tourist behaviors, social impacts of tourism, Arctic tourism and sustainability in hospitality and tourism.

Muzaffer S. Uysal is a Chair and Professor in the Hospitality and Tourism Management Department in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. He is a member of International Academy for the Study of Tourism and the Academy of Leisure Sciences. His current research interests center on tourism demand/supply interaction, tourism development and QOL research in tourism and hospitality.