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tourists during the entire co-creation process, and by optimizing tourists' value creation process
(e.g. improving the process' effi ciency) (FP4, 6, 7, and 8) (Payne, Storbacka and Frow 2008).
In the tourism literature, the idea of tourists being involved in defi ning and creating their
own tourism experience is not necessarily new (Jackson, White and Schmierer 1996; Wang
1999), but an explicit recognition of tourism experience co-creation is fairly recent (Binkhorst
and Dekker 2009; Prebensen and Foss 2011; Scott, Laws and Boksberger 2009). In addition to
SDL, research interests on tourism experience co-creation seem to result partly from renewed
attention to studying quality or memorable tourism experiences (Jennings, Lee and Ayling
2009; Jennings and Nickerson 2006; Ritchie and Hudson 2009; Tung and Ritchie 2011).
Experience co-creation in tourism seems to include at least three types: tourist-tourist
interaction/co-creation (e.g. the behaviour of fellow tourists in a theme park could substantially
affect one's experience), tourist-service provider co-creation (see Lee and colleagues (2010) for
an example of travel product innovation driven by tourists), and visitor-local co-creation
(Binkhorst and Dekker 2009). Notably, one rather unique characteristic of experience
co-creation in tourism is the high level of interaction with other tourists and local residents, as
most other categories of services are catered either without other customers' involvement or
with such involvement minimized.
Destination as a service system and resource integrator
In the past, most tourism scholars viewed destinations as places people travel to and stay for
experiences unavailable at their home environment, as objective backdrops against which
tourism development simply occurs and impacts upon (Bærenholdt
et al
. 2004; Leiper 1995), and
as 'taken-for-granted resources and as fi xed territorial entities where faceless tourist masses come
and go via different routes' (Saraniemi and Kylänen 2011: 135). Put differently, they conceptualize
destinations as
operand resources
, or 'resources on which an operation or act is performed to
produce an effect' (Vargo and Lusch 2004a: 2). Saraniemi and Kylänen (2011), obviously impacted
by SDL, recommend defi ning destinations as 'a set of institutions and actors located in a physical
or a virtual space where marketing-related transactions and activities take place' (2011: 133).
In essence, they view destinations more as operant resources - resources 'employed to act on
operand resources (and other operant resources)' (Vargo and Lusch 2004a: 2).
This author concurs with Saraniemi and Kylänen (2011). Moreover, from a service science
perspective, this author suggests viewing destinations as dynamic service systems that integrate
resources (FP9). SDL researchers defi ne service system as 'an arrangement of resources (including
people, technology, information, etc.) connected to other systems by value propositions' (Vargo,
Maglio and Akaka 2008: 149). Entities within a service system exchange competence by sharing
information, work, risk, and goods (Maglio and Spohrer 2008). In the tourism destination
context, because of the highly fragmented nature of tourism product offerings - multiple
different service providers are involved in providing tourists' holistic travel experiences -
destination marketing organizations (DMOs) today need to play a role in integrating localized,
specialized skills and resources and transforming them into higher-order competences (FP9)
(Lusch, Vargo and O'Brien 2007). To survive in today's environment, a destination needs to
constantly enhance its competences, build relationships, and capture and process information
(Lusch, Vargo and Tanniru 2010).
A destination's competitiveness thus comes from its ability to understand and co-create value
with its clients (e.g. tour operators) and customers (e.g. tourists), its ability to empower and
educate institutions and individuals in the value co-creation process, its ability to build
relationships with other destinations and service systems, and its ability to optimize competence
