Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tourists and hosts are part of an experience process in which both parties - more or less
willingly and actively - partake for the purpose of creating value (experience value for the
customers, economic value for the fi rm, and social, economic and sustainable value for
the destination).
The level of interaction, i.e. interactivity, is described by Bolton and Saxena-Iyer (2009) in
terms of two dimensions, namely the extent of customer participation and the extent to which
the service is technology enabled or delivered, which points to the idea of service as instrumental
(solving a problem for the customer). Other researchers suggest that the dimensions of interactive
experiences include passive versus active participation and absorption versus immersion
(Pine and Gilmore 1999), and suggest four realms of experience: entertainment, educational,
aesthetic and escapist. This perspective refl ects the notion of actions as autotelic, indicating that
the customer values being present and enjoying the moment. Despite these efforts to acknowledge
interactive experiences, few studies have actually explored interaction from the customers'
viewpoint, which is tourist participation as a resource in enhancing value for the tourist and the
fi rms in the service encounter. As Ramirez (1999: 49) puts it:
. . . value co-produced by two or more actors, with and for each other, with and for yet
other actors, invites us to rethink organizational structures and managerial arrangements for
value creation inherited from the industrial era. But it also invites us to rethink value
creation itself.
Hence, interaction practices can be inputs for fi rms to develop and facilitate enhanced value for
the various interaction parties.
Hedonism is a foundational idea for tourist travel whatever the underlying motivations are,
i.e. relaxation, learning, or socializing. Tourist travel is thus fundamentally different from
traditional services purchased to solve a problem, e.g. due to lack of knowledge or because one
does not have the time, energy or desire to perform the activity oneself. Tourists visit other
places, events and people because they want to be present during the production, and more or
less actively involved in the production or creation of the experience. Consequently, tourist
experiences may differ from other services bought because of lack of motivation, time or
knowledge to perform the service oneself. Research shows that tourists who are more motivated
are more involved in the tourist trip (Prebensen
et al
. 2012). Prebensen
et al
.'s study also shows
that both motivation and involvement positively affect tourists' perceived value of the trip
experience. In a follow-up study, Prebensen
et al
. (2013b) show that tourists' knowledge, in
addition to motivation and involvement, also affects the customers' perceptions of value, which
in turn has a positive effect on evaluation and future intentions, such as word-of-mouth recom-
mendations and intention to return to the destination. Thus, tourist motivation, involvement and
knowledge are vital antecedents in value creation processes.
S-D logic embodies a move in the logic of exchange signifying a shift from a focus on
products and results to a process and service-centric orientation (Vargo and Lusch 2008). The
dichotomy between co-creation versus co-production is outlined in a tourist context by
Chathoth
et al
. (2013), where the degree of involvement defi nes customization and co-creation.
Co-production is delineated as comprising lower and more sporadic involvement, whereas
co-creation is described in terms of a higher degree of involvement from both host and guests
and being a continuous process. Further, the literature describes co-production as focusing on
how to make the customers become 'partial employees' (e.g. Wickström 1996) and thus the fi rm
should aim to co-opt customer competence (e.g. Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004). In contrast,
co-creation always considers the consumer as a vital agent in value creation processes; 'value can
