ABSTRACT Experience co-creation as a distinguishing aspect of creative tourism has garnered significant scholarly attention. However, there remains a dearth of studies that investigates the phenomenon of value co-creation in innovative spaces such as boutique hotels. The present study examines boutique hotels in the creative city of Jaipur in India as potential vehicles of creativity. The study aims to identify boutique hotel attributes that facilitate value co-creation and their association with transformative tourism experiences. By utilising value co-creation theory and transformative learning theory, this study has proposed a research framework which has been empirically validated by performing structural equation modelling on data collected from 508 tourists. The results indicate that the three boutique hotel attributes, namely interactive authenticity, emotional authenticity, and novel atmosphere, are significant predictors of perceived value co-creation and transformative experiences. Further, we find that ethnocentrism, as a pre-trip emotion, exerts a positive moderating effect on the association between emotional authenticity and value co-creation. This study highlights the key attributes of boutique hotels envisaging creative tourism which can be strategically incorporated by hotel managers and destination planners. The findings offer insightful implications for industry practice and policy towards developing business opportunities and entrepreneurial ventures for creative tourism.