Multi-actor value co-creation in community-based tourism

Abstract

Community-based tourism (CBT) is an alternative tourism approach appraised for its contribution to uplifting the social-economic well-being of the host community. The uniqueness of this approach is that, unlike other tourism approaches, the host community is comprised of a range of tourism stakeholders who play various roles as tourism service suppliers, employees, and members from the local community integrating resources with tourists in co-creating value. However, the extant literature on value co-creation concentrates on the tourist-host dyad to explore the phenomenon. Therefore, there is little insight into value co-creation and its consequences in a multi-actor context where service encounters occur between tourists and multiple host community actors. Taking Phillip Island, Australia, as a case study of CBT destination, this paper reveals how micro-level actors coordinate value co-creation as resource integrators. Finally, addressing the phenomenological nature of value in service-dominant logic (SDL), positive and negative value perceptions for the actors were also explored. The paper thus sheds light on value co-creation activities and their consequences from multiple actor roles within the CBT ecosystem.