Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
10
Experience, co-creation
and technology
Issues, challenges and trends for
technology enhanced tourism experiences
Barbara Neuhofer and Dimitrios Buhal
is
Introduction
Consumers are increasingly striving for experiences. As products and services have become
interchangeable and replicated, the search for unique, compelling and memorable experiences in
the context of tourism has become a key notion. In tourism marketing, the concept of the
experience economy has long provided a valuable vehicle to design, stage and deliver experiences
to consumers and gain competitive advantage. In the past years, the advent of two major shifts to
the fi eld of marketing has challenged the current understanding of tourism experiences. The
concept of the experience economy has evolved, as consumers have become more active and
empowered in playing a part in co-creating their own experiences in quest for personal growth
(Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004).
In addition to the development of the notion of co-creation, a second major change has taken
place. With the advances in the fi eld of technology, tourism experiences are not only co-created
but more than ever technology-mediated (Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier 2009). The proliferation
of recent information and communication technologies (ICTs) has had a great infl uence on
society and people's everyday lives and has implied new challenges for the creation of experiences.
With the dynamics of empowered consumers adopting emerging technologies for travel,
traditional roles and processes of experiences creation have changed. These recent developments
have led to the discussion of a new paradigm in the fi eld of marketing, moving from Experience
1.0 (the experience economy) to the Experience 2.0 (co-creation experiences), towards a
new era of experiences, namely Experience 3.0 technology enhanced tourism experiences.
A rethinking in marketing to refl ect upon possible potentials, issues, challenges and future trends
of tourism experiences is needed.
In this light, this chapter has the aim, by drawing upon experience, co-creation and technology
literature, to provide a discussion of the issues, challenges and trends for the creation of technology
enhanced tourism experiences. The chapter is divided into three main sections. The fi rst part
reviews the theoretical development of tourism experiences in the fi eld of marketing, by briefl y
