Co-creating visitor experiences in cultural heritage museums: the avenue towards sustainable tourism development

Abstract

Even though value co-creation is an important premise for cultural tourism destinations, such as museums, pertaining to its contribution to the cultural tourism experience is scan. The present study addresses the increasing calls for conceptualising the process of value co-creation in the field of cultural tourism. A qualitative approach is utilised, exploring the perspective of professionals (i.e., policy makers and museum managers/employees) and visitors/tourists. Results support the C-D logic of value co-creation, which explains how visitors construct their value perceptions via their own sense making process of the provided resources/activities. Drivers such as visitors predispositions, knowledge and informational attributes, educational/interpretation methods, and environmental variables, emerged as significant factors for the co-created experience. Additionally, co-creation can help destinations sustainability; it can provide holistic experiences, satisfying both visitors and tourism industry, while incorporating/benefiting local communities and the destinations environment. Museums need to utilise co-creation to codesign, co-produce, and co-disseminate memorable experiences.