Wozniak, T.; Liebrich, A.; Senn, Y.; Zemp, M. at ENTER2016 eTourism Conference

1. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 1
Alpine Tourists’ Willingness to Engage in
Virtual Co-Creation of Experiences
Thomas Wozniak, Andreas Liebrich, Yves Senn,
and Myrta Zemp
Institute of Tourism, Lucerne School of Business,
Switzerland
thomas.wozniak@hslu.ch
http://hslu.ch/itw

2. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 2
Agenda
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Methodology
• Results
• Conclusions

3. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 3
Introduction
• Increasing mobile device usage in everyday life and all
phases of travel (Wang & Fesenmaier, 2013; Wang et al., 2014, Wang,
et al., 2012)
• Increasing competition of destinations  authentic and
unique experiences as differentiating factors (Buhalis, 2000;
Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004)
• Virtual co-creation of personalised experiences on site
(Neuhofer et al., 2012)
• Smartphones as important technological element for
virtual co-creation of experiences and among core
technology of Smart Tourism (Neuhofer et al., 2012; Gretzel et al.,
2015)

4. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 4
Literature Review
• Technology-mediated co-creation of personalized
Experiences on site
• Smart tourism destinations in alpine regions
• The use of mobile technologies by destinations
and tourists

5. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 5
Technology-mediated Co-creation
of Personalized Experiences on site (1/2)
• Co-creation of experiences involves a network of various
stakeholders (Binkhorst & Den Dekker, 2009)
• Mediation and facilitation by ICT, esp. the Internet, Web
2.0, and social media (Binkhorst & Den Dekker, 2009; Neuhofer et al.,
2012; Tussyadiah & Fesenmaier, 2009)
• On-site phase as the most intriguing phase for DMOs
(Neuhofer et al., 2012)
• Personalized information and recommendations via
mobile device in real time (Neuhofer et al., 2012)

6. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 6
Technology-mediated Co-creation
of Personalized Experiences on site (2/2)
• “Personalization is the process of adapting the output of a
system to a user’s context and profile” (Habegger et al., 2014, p.
25)
• Tourist’s willingness to a) provide private information and
b) permit sharing of private information across a network
of various tourism as crucial pre-requisite
• Although most of 13 interviewees welcome personalized
services, majority would not allow sharing their data
across different tourism service providers (Buhalis &
Amaranggana, 2015)
 Personalization-privacy paradox (e.g. Sutanto et al., 2013)

7. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 7
Smart Tourism Destinations
in Alpine Regions
• Use of ICT for enriching tourist experiences to enhance
destinations’ competitiveness as integral part of Smart
Tourism Destinations (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014)
• Different types of stakeholders dynamically
interconnected through a technological platform (Buhalis &
Amaranggana, 2014)
• Lack of research on Smart Tourism, e.g. on consumption
of smart experiences (privacy concerns, attitude towards
co-creation, value derived, etc.) (Gretzel et al., 2015)
• Concept of Smart Tourism mainly applied to city
destinations (e.g. Boes et al., 2015; Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014;
Gretzel et al., 2015)

8. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 8
The Use of Mobile Technologies
by Destinations and Tourists
• Research interest in mobile technologies and systems in
tourism has significantly grown (Pourfakhimi & Ying, 2015)
• Supply-side studies on functions of individual apps or
benchmarking destinations (Dickinson et al., 2014; Buhalis &
Wagner, 2013)
 destinations should look into personalization of
information, recommendations, or services on site
• Demand-side studies often focus on domestic travel,
mostly do not recruit respondents “in situ”, and do not
focus on specific type of destination

9. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 9
Methodology
• 26 semi-structured interviews in different locations within
the alpine destination of Saas-Fee/Saastal
• In German, English, and French in 10 days in Feb. 2015
• Typical visitor mix:
 50% domestic/ 50% international
 Socioeconomic groups
• Screening criteria: stay 1 night+; smartphone user
• Voice records  verbatim transcripts  MAXQDA 
thematic and open coding

10. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 10
Results
Concept of virtual co-creation among a network of multiple
tourism stakeholders can materialize as:
Willingness to
receive
relevant push-based
information or
recommendations
Willingness to
disclose
different types of
private information
Willingness to
permit
sharing of disclosed
information between
stakeholders
Personalization
of information and recommendations

11. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 11
Receive relevant push-based messages
14 out of 24 respondents open to receive relevant push
messages:
Those open to receive Those not willing to receive
• Attitude
• Quantity
• Quality/relevance
• When and where
• Contents
• Preference for pull
approach
• Fear of too many
messages

12. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 12
Those open to receive
• Attitude ranges from demanding to rather accepting:
• Quantity: limited number of messages (#2) vs. daily (#1)
• Quality: relevant push messages welcome, not spam (#3)
• When and where: only on site (#2), morning hours (#2)
• Contents: promotions (#2); info an happy hours (#2),
events and activities (#2), and updates on skiing
conditions (#1)
“Give me ideas, I am
on vacation!”
“Yeah, as long as I
am not bombarded.”
“I would look at it for
sure.”
# … number of respondents

13. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 13
Those not willing to receive
• Preference for pull approach (#5):
 Well structured app (#1) or an app with up-to-date information
including ads on current events (#1)
 Simply going online when looking for up-to-date information (#1)
 More general – preference for well presented and easy to find
information (#1) and an unintrusive and discreet manner of how
things are being offered (#1)
• Fear of too many messages (#2)
# … number of respondents

14. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 14
Disclose different types
of private information (1/2)
“Personalization is the process of adapting the output of a
system to a user’s context and profile” (Habegger et al., 2014, p. 25)
21
15
10
7
3
4
0 5 10 15 20 25
Socio-demographics
Personal preferences
Personal interests
Location
Social contacts
n=26
current history

15. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 15
Disclose different types
of private information (2/2)
Findings independent of information type:
• Lack of perceived benefit or added value can prevent
information disclosure (#2)
• Minimal effort for disclosing information is critical
– #4 would not want to fill in a questionnaire
– “They should find out themselves!” (#1)  no effort at all
• Trust in the entity receiving the information (#2)
• Quantity of messages is critical
– Disclosure only if number of messages is limited
– Fear of two many can prevent disclosure
# … number of respondents

16. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 16
Permit sharing of disclosed
information across stakeholders
13 out of 26 respondents would be willing to permit the
sharing of information disclosed to the hotel with local DMO:
Those willing to permit Those not willing to permit
• Only anonymized
information (#2)
• Within destination
boundaries (#1) vs.
transferrable (#1)
• Quantity of messages (#1)
• Quality/relevance (#1)
• Reciprocity (#1)
• Perceived lack of control
(#2)
• Afraid of misuse (#1) or
too many messages (#1)
• Benefit/added value not
clear (#1)
# … number of respondents

17. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 17
Conclusions (1/4)
Overall contribution
• Empirical demand-side contribution related to virtual co-
creation of experiences on site, SoCoMo marketing, and
Smart Tourism
• Focus on virtual co-creation environment and thus
exchange of information as ‘locus of value creation’
• Specifically addressed alpine tourists’ willingness
regarding the ‘receive’, ‘disclose’, and ‘permit’ elements
• Identified several drivers and inhibitors of virtual co-
creation on site from tourist perspective

18. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 18
Conclusions (2/4)
• Conception of privacy as non-intrusion or accessibility
privacy (Tavani, 2007) as possible explanation for fear of
too many messages or preference for pull approach
• Smaller size of alpine destination as compared to city
destinations and “in situ” data collection may explain
higher portion of tourists willing to permit sharing of
disclosed information across stakeholders in destination
• Potential of different types of travellers regarding virtual
co-creation of experiences

19. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 19
Conclusions (3/4)
Practical implications
• Added value of disclosing any kind of private information
must exist and needs to be well communicated to tourist
• Perceived ease of use and/or effort of disclosing
information must be considered, e.g. through:
 An easy-to-use disclosure process
 Employing gamification for motivating disclosure
 Strongly focusing on inferring tourists’ needs from mining data
not explicitly given

20. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 20
Conclusions (4/4)
• Trust as challenge esp. for first-time visitors or at least in
early phase of stay in destination
• Push messages must be relevant and limited in number
• Opt-out mechanisms must be present  gain insights why
tourist opt out
• Tourists’ willingness to co-create as a major, but not the
only pre-requisite of successful co-creation within a
destination

21. ENTER 2016 Research Track Slide Number 21
Further research
• Further qualitative research for exploring tourist
behaviour in destination as basis for quantitative
study (segmentation)
• Develop products and processes for specific
segments