Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
opportunity is to abandon dated company-led experience creation approaches and keep up with
the current movement towards consumer empowerment and emergences in the fi eld of
technology. To do so, tourism marketing will need to adapt to:
1 the changing nature of experiences;
2 new implications for co-creation; and
3 the need to exploit the potential of technologies for the enhancement of experiences.
To put the changed paradigm into practice, it is necessary for marketers to consider collaboration
with consumers and their use of ICTs as the key to a successful creation of innovative experiences,
added value and competitive advantage.
Being on the forefront of technology in a dynamic tourism environment thus means to
capture cutting-edge technologies and pioneer in using them as tools for innovation and strategic
competitive advantage in the marketing and management of experiences. As the understanding
and implementation of co-creation in tourism (Binkhorst and Den Dekker 2009), let alone the
realization of technology enhanced tourism experiences is still in its infancy (Neuhofer
et al
.
2012), there will be great potential in this area in the near future. With emerging technologies
and the dynamics of the tourism industry, tourism experiences are equally exposed to constant
change, which renders the evolution of tourism experiences far from completed. It will be an
on-going and transformational process with new opportunities for experiences unfolding over
the coming years. With continuous innovations in the IT sector, we can foresee opportunities in
social media engagement and the role of real time service delivery, location and context based
services, augmented reality applications and social gaming. Thus, research is never-ending and
continuous efforts in exploring new and reappraising the existing understanding of tourism
experiences are needed. Subsequently, this chapter concludes by setting out an agenda for
tourism practice and research alike to highlight the need to conceptually and practically advance
knowledge of innovating and creating competitive experiences.
For tourism marketing and management, numerous practical implications become evident. It
is necessary to constantly monitor current trends and emerging technologies in order to explore
the potential of their implementation for the enhancement of tourism experiences. In doing so,
it is paramount for marketers to create strategic innovations by using the latest technologies
available to maximize co-creation, create added value with consumers and generate competitive
advantage. By using social technologies, such as social media, interactive platforms or mobile
applications, there is great potential to intensify the levels of co-creation and value extraction and
create fully enhanced experiences throughout multiple touch points and stages, including
pre/during/post stage of travel. Future research on multiple levels is needed to advance our
understanding of tourism experience creation. For instance, company-centric studies are required
to investigate provider and stakeholder involvement in the facilitation and co-creation of
successful technology enhanced tourism experiences. To complement this perspective, studies
focusing on the consumer are essential in better understanding the tourists' roles in, needs and
perceptions regarding experiences. Research investigating value perspectives needs to be
encouraged to understand how value propositions can be maximized through the use of ICTs.
Moreover, research, in exploring these current issues and challenges, should exploit the potential
of technology as a research instrument, by using online, virtual and mobile spaces and applying
technology-led methods to develop a better understanding of technology enhanced tourism
experiences. While these recommendations only provide a snapshot of the status quo, many
questions undoubtedly remain open and much more research is needed for understanding future
developments in the creation of experiences in tourism marketing theory and practice.
