Proposing a Model of Co-Creative Participation in Tourism Market

Objective There is a growing interest in the customers’ innovation in the realm of tourism studies. In the new global business ecosystem where individuals, organizations, governments and economy work together as an integrated network, we need a new innovation model. The model should be set at a level in which internal, external, cooperative and co-creative ideas can converge to create organizational values and sharing those values. Considering the active participation of the regional opponents in the world tourism industry, there is a need to an efficient multi-faceted model for co creative innovation in order to encourage the use of reasonable strategies in tourism industry in Iran which can lead to the development of tourism. One can lower the risk and decrease the costs of exploiting tourism programs through identifying different partnerships affective in the co-creative process. Hence, the main concern of the present study is to identify the consumers’ cooperation types in co-creative activities and their probable effects on tourism industry.   Methodology The present study is a fundamental qualitative research. Grounded theory was used to extract theory out of the data. Deep semi-structured interviews, observation and documentary research were used as data collection procedures. The two groups of tourists and experts were interviewed in Iran and Europe tourism sites. The researchers used library and internet resources suh as books, articles, and case studies to complete the theoretical basis and used interview, asking for tourists and experts’ opinions to determine the desirable criteria. A sample size of 8 individuals was selected through non-random theoric sampling. Max QDE software was used to analyze the data and form theories while the interviews are all coded (open, pivotal, and selective) and then the subjects were extracted and joined together.   Findings The researchers reported two types of partnership for the customers namely, explicit and implicit and two partnership objectives for the tourists. Customers’ partnership in co-creative tourism activities are classified into four categories of: explicit-cocreative, explicit-sharing, implicit-cocreative, and implicit-sharing.   Conclusion The results showed that tourists can take part in cocreative activities within tourism organizations and companies in four different partnership types. Cocreative partnership characteristic allow customers’ involvement during the production time of the tourism product. The objective of explicit cocreative partnership is to create experiences or knowledge for tourists which includes brainstorming and co-thinking. Comparing the information of the customers among the companies at the same level can lead to creation of explicit ideas. Tourism companies, in explicit sharing, attempt to attract explicit partnership in order to share experiences or knowledge. Therefore, tourists are informed of their involvement in experience or knowledge sharing activities. Such partnership includes interview and sharing of ideas. Tourism companies furtively attract tourists’ partnership in implicit cocreative partnership in order to create experiences or knowledge. Cultural and impalpable programs are some instances of such partnership type. Finally, regarding implicit sharing partnership, we can consider visual programs and sharing activities among the characteristic of such partnership type.