Author: Regragui Chiadmi, Nour Eddine
Title: The co-creation of tourism experience : destination marketing organization and tourist perspectives.
Advisors: Chan, Andrew (SHTM)
Degree: DHTM
Year: 2015
Subject: Tourism -- Social aspects.
Tourism -- Marketing.
Tourism -- Technological innovations.
Tourists -- Attitudes.
Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations
Department: School of Hotel and Tourism Management
Pages: 316 pages : color illustrations
Language: English
Abstract: The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the co-creation of tourism experience within DMO's stakeholders and tourists' encounters and to explore tourists and DMO's stakeholders' attitudes and perceptions concerning co-creation, as well as to understand their influence on the generation of memorable tourism experiences and on the destination's attractiveness. This dissertation is inspired by the increasing centrality of the tourist as co-designer of his travel experiences and stimulated by the growing dissatisfaction of tourists regarding tourism destination collaborations, as well as the rapid spread of social networks, facilitated by unexpected advances of Information and Communication Technologies(ICT), which impact tourists' decision making. A comprehensive and up-to-date review of literature provides a guide to the theory and a path for research. To enhance the understanding of the studied phenomenon and to increase the strength of this research through triangulation, this dissertation used a qualitative case study as a research method and employed three complementary methods to collect data: in-depth interviews with DMO's stakeholders, netnography analysis to understand tourists' social and cultural aspects of co-creation of travel experiences and participant observation to investigate the core of DMO's stakeholders and tourists'interactions.
The theoretical constructs of the consumer co-creating the brand relationship model and the adapted co-creation building blocks DART framework were used as a basis to interpret the empirical material.Theoretical contributions include an extended DART framework to further complement and strengthen the co-creation process. Practical implications were also proposed. Concerning empirical contributions, the findings also show that co-creation occurs in many forms and at many levels; however, traditionally minded DMO's stakeholders are reluctant to allow tourists to be involved in the co-creation process by fear of losing their supremacy. Nevertheless, co-creation is increasingly becoming a trend in contemporary DMO structures. Co-creation pushes DMOs towards open mindedness, a wider participatory culture and an enhanced collaboration with tourists for the co-creation of memorable tourism experiences, hence a sustainable relationship with tourists and an increased attractiveness of the destination. As tourist empowerment is challenging the traditional DMO-tourist relationship model, the improvement of a contemporary destination attractiveness remains related to balanced DMO's stakeholders and tourists interactions, thus to an equal partnership in the co-creation of tourism experiences.
Rights: All rights reserved
Access: restricted access

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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/handle/200/8396