As consumers demand change regarding the negative aspects of the
tourism industry, such as environmental problems caused by overtourism and
imbalances in profit distribution, the transition to sustainable tourism has
become an unavoidable reality. How...
As consumers demand change regarding the negative aspects of the
tourism industry, such as environmental problems caused by overtourism and
imbalances in profit distribution, the transition to sustainable tourism has
become an unavoidable reality. However, fair travel, which began to be known
in South Korea in the late 2000s, is still a relatively unfamiliar concept to
tourists due to low social awareness and lack of background knowledge.
Consequently, tourists who are interested in experiencing fair travel primarily
rely on fair travel agencies. Therefore, this study aims to propose strategies to
expand the proportion of fair travel agencies in the existing travel market as a
means to activate fair travel, which is a representative alternative form of
tourism.
In today's world, the relationship between companies and customers is
rapidly evolving into a collaborative partnership. Customers want to participate
directly in the value creation process of companies and engage in co-creation.
This concept of co-creation, which has recently attracted academic and
practical attention, has gained importance in the tourism industry as well. It
involves tourists actively participating in the planning and production of new
tourism experiences based on their previous travel experiences. Based on this
observation, this study focuses on the strategic and competitive development
directions of fair travel agencies through the co-creation between tourists who
have experienced fair travel and fair travel agencies.
To achieve this, the study examined the influence of the fair travel selection
attributes of tourists who have experienced fair travel through travel agencies
on the co-creation with the agencies and their customer citizenship behavior.
The research results revealed that all the selection attributes of fair travel,
namely economic, environmental, and socio-cultural attributes, had a
significant positive (+) impact on the sub-factors of co-creation, namely
interaction and responsiveness. Furthermore, it was found that the interaction
and responsiveness of co-creation had a significant positive (+) impact on
customer citizenship behavior. Based on these findings, the following academic
and practical implications can be suggested:
First, this study is significant in that it applies the concept of co-creation
for the first time in the field of fair travel. Second, fair travel was found to have
a positive impact on the co-creation (interaction and responsiveness). This
indicates that the interaction between tourists who respect the local culture and
environment and fair travel agencies, which provide direct economic support to
the local community, leads to the creation of new values. Third, the results of
this study indicate that the interaction and responsiveness of co-creation have
a greater impact on customer citizenship behavior. This suggests that the
active interaction between tourists and fair travel agencies, which is based on
the nature of the tourism industry where tourists simultaneously experience
and produce experiences, can generate voluntary customer citizenship
behavior. Fourth, the analysis of this study showed that responsiveness had a
greater impact on customer citizenship behavior than interaction. This implies
that it is more important for fair travel agencies to first approach tourists and
encourage their participation in dialogue before initiating bilateral interaction
in order to induce voluntary customer citizenship behavior.
In terms of practical implications, the communication with tourists who
have experienced fair travel is crucial as it can ultimately contribute to the
production and improvement of fair travel products by involving them as coproducers. Additionally, among the selection attributes of fair travel, the
economic attribute had the greatest impact on the co-creation. Therefore, fair
travel agencies should develop products and services that allow tourists to use
accommodations and restaurants operated by locals, consume food made from
local agricultural and specialty products, and participate in programs run by
local residents. Lastly, this study verified that the co-creation can lead to active
customer citizenship behavior. fair travel agencies should establish appropriate
strategies to induce voluntary actions from customers, such as providing
rewards systems for tourists who give proactive feedback and creating methods
to evoke positive emotions. It is crucial to design products and services that
meet the needs of travel agency customers through these strategies.