Human value co-creation behavior in tourism: Insight from an Australian whale watching experience

Abstract

This study explores and tests a comprehensive model of co-creation in creating value and tourist satisfaction. In addition to being the first study to empirically test the customer value co-creation behavior scale developed by Yi and Gong (2013), the present work adds to theory by revealing the importance of tourists' mental co-creation and employees' active participation in creating value and satisfaction for the customer. Factor analyses and econometric models of logit model and multivariable ordinary least squares regression are applied to a sample of 1024 whale watching tourists. The study finds that tourists' participation is more important in influencing their perceived value during the experience than their satisfaction. Employees' input is key to the experience in enhancing tourists' value and satisfaction. The main contribution of the study is the inclusion of co-creation behaviors from different human actors including tourists and employees. Opportunities for future research are outlined.