Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
The development of online travel communities has exploded, driven by advancements in technology and the growth of social commerce (Ben-Shaul & Reichel, 2018; Bowen & Whalen, 2017; Y. Zhou et al., 2021). These communities are designed with functionalities to support both social networking and online shopping experiences, fueled by social and hedonic incentives that encourage user participation (Edwards et al., 2017; Wang & Fesenmaier, 2004; Y. Zhou et al., 2020). Statistics show that travelers spend over 5 hr consuming travel content in the 45 days before booking (TravelPerk, 2024). Notably, social media plays a significant role, with 75% of travelers reporting that social media posts inspired their destinations (TravelPerk, 2024). In addition, online travel communities, such as Trip.com and Lonely Planet, have significantly shifted how travelers access information and interact with other users and tourism companies. This shift is driven by the collaborative nature of online travel communities, which fosters a more active approach compared to the passive role associated with using separate online travel agencies, brand communities, and review websites. This aligns with a shift in marketing where customers are no longer seen as passive value recipients, but rather as proactive actors who can co-create value (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000).
Recognizing this potential, tourism companies are increasingly leveraging online travel communities as platforms for value co-creation with travelers (Jiang et al., 2024). Travelers actively contribute to the community by sharing their experiences, knowledge and insights, as well as receiving the benefit of acquiring valuable travel information for future planning, empowering them to make travel decisions (C. Xie et al., 2008; Y. Zhou et al., 2021). The wealth of user-generated content also provides a crucial advantage for companies. By analyzing user-shared information, firms gain valuable insights into customer purchase intentions, enabling them to refine and improve their service offerings (Wang & Hajli, 2014; Wu, Shen, Fan, & Mattila, 2017; Wu, Shen, Li, & Deng, 2017).
Recent research highlights the characteristics of online travel communities as “personal investment, intimacy, and commitment” (Y. Zhou et al., 2021, p. 197). These factors go beyond simple information exchange among people with shared interests; they suggest the potential for online travel communities to foster business value through social, emotional and personal connections. Thus, tourism companies develop relationships with users and facilitate value co-creation within online travel communities (Buhalis & Sinarta, 2019). While much of the existing research on value co-creation in tourism has focused on user-to-user interactions and voluntary content sharing, there has been limited exploration of how interactions involving the community platform itself and its employees contribute to value co-creation (Fan et al., 2023; Jiang et al., 2024). This study addresses this gap by examining these overlooked dimensions, offering a more comprehensive understanding of value co-creation within online travel communities.
Current studies on value co-creation in online travel communities have predominantly focused on user engagement, often categorizing users into simplified groups such as lurkers or posters (Chapman & Dilmperi, 2022; Y. Zhou et al., 2021). This dichotomous approach overlooks the connection between variety of engagement behaviors and user roles facilitated by the advanced functionalities of modern online travel platforms. This study builds on prior research by exploring the nuanced roles of different user types and their varied engagement behaviors in the value co-creation process within online travel communities, offering a more comprehensive understanding of user participation. Drawing on prior insights into the value co-creation process, which emphasize resource integration, collaborative activities, and interactions within customer service networks (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2012; Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2008), it seeks to explore how value co-creation is achieved through the diverse interactions of multiple actors, the variety of activities they engage in, and their differing engagement behaviors.
This study is guided by three key objectives. First, it aims to identify the various types of value co-creators within online travel communities. Second, it seeks to identify the nature of interactions among these co-creators and the engagement behaviors that emerge as a result. Third, the study examines how interactions and engagement can benefit a tourism company and its community users. To this end, it delves into a holistic view of the value co-creation mechanism within these communities, aiming to enrich our understanding of how value is co-created among all stakeholders in these communities. The findings contribute to the existing literature on value co-creation within online travel communities, and provide guidance for tourism companies on effectively leveraging such communities to engage users to participate in value co-creation.
Literature Review
Online Travel Communities
The development of social media and e-commerce has catalyzed new business models for linking business goals, customer connection, and system interaction in online communities (Huang & Benyoucef, 2013, 2015). As a result, the retail industry has witnessed the emergence of social shopping communities, a novel form of online communities that integrates commercial functionalities for transactions and advertising (Olbrich & Holsing, 2011; K. Z. K. Zhang & Benyoucef, 2016; L. Zhou et al., 2013). Such online communities facilitate the creation and exchange of user-generated content within a user’s social networks (Acar & Polonsky, 2008; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; J. W. Kim et al., 2008). Users are able to create personal pages, access the profiles of other users, seek information, share photos and videos, and send instant messages (Hsu, 2012), encompassing both virtual and real-world connections (Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Keenan & Shiri, 2009). Instead of solely relying on product sales to generate value, companies seek to motivate customers to engage in the online community by offering special rewards, thereby fostering a dynamic environment of value co-creation (Fournier & Avery, 2011). The rise of social shopping communities has inevitably influenced the travel industry, transforming the functionalities of online travel communities and the ways in which travelers interact within such communities.
Recent tourism studies define online travel communities as social platforms where travelers with similar interests exchange travel-related information, build social ties, and purchase travel products (Wu, Shen, Li, & Deng, 2017; Y. Zhou et al., 2020). These communities provide user-generated content or company-provided information for travel recommendations, influencing travelers’ purchase decision-making through social interaction (Li et al., 2019). Contemporary online travel communities have evolved into comprehensive hubs where travelers can research, book, share experiences, communicate with fellow customers, discover travel businesses, and plan their trips (Agarwal et al., 2022). For the purpose of this study, we view online travel communities as specialized social platforms designed for travelers to engage in community-centric activities and social commerce travel-related activities. They allow travelers to share experiences, seek advice, and connect with like-minded individuals. Beyond traditional travel forums, these platforms’ social commerce features enable users to book and purchase travel products directly within the community (Olbrich & Holsing, 2011). While there may be some overlap with some services offered by traditional online travel agencies, online travel communities primarily focus on user-generated content and social interaction. This community-centric approach fosters a more dynamic and engaging online experience compared to traditional travel agencies (Gao & Li, 2019; Lu et al., 2016; Shen et al., 2020; Wu, Shen, Li, & Deng, 2017). Table 1 summarizes the key features of contemporary online travel communities.
Key Features of Online Travel Communities.
Member Participation in Online Travel Communities
Member participation is a critical component in the success of an online travel community, especially long-term participation (S. Kim et al., 2018; Malinen, 2015). Members’ participation in online travel communities encompasses both quantitative and qualitative aspects of member engagement. Quantitative participation focuses on the volume of content generated by members. This includes the number of posts, comments, and interactions a member contributes, and it can be linked to the overall success of the community (Shang et al., 2006). Qualitative participation, on the other hand, delves deeper into members’ online experiences. Research suggests qualitative participation can lead to transaction- and community-related outcomes, such as purchase intention (Casaló et al., 2010) and recommendation intentions (Ben-Shaul & Reichel, 2018), overall satisfaction (Choi et al., 2019), a sense of belonging (Malinen, 2015), and quality friendships among members (Cullen & Morse, 2011). Furthermore, for brand-supported online travel communities, member participation in these communities can lead to positive brand outcomes such as brand relationship (Touni et al., 2020), brand commitment (Kang et al., 2014), and brand trust (Kang et al., 2015).
The Concept and Mechanisms of Value Co-creation
Co-creation, a process of jointly generating tangible and symbolic value (Tueanrat et al., 2021), transforms customers from passive recipients into active co-creators in service production and delivery (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000; Vargo & Lusch, 2008). Rooted in service-dominant logic, this process involves the dynamic interactions between firms and customers, resulting in mutual benefits for both parties (Agrawal & Rahman, 2015; Berezina et al., 2016; Vargo & Lusch, 2004). Following Vargo and Lusch (2004, 2008) and McColl-Kennedy et al. (2012), value co-creation emerges through resource integration and collaborative activities within a service network. In the context of tourism, these activities involve tourists actively co-creating their experiences at destinations. This process encompasses activities such as connecting, co-creating, and facilitating (Sfandla & Björk, 2013) within environments intentionally designed to foster interaction, allowing tourists to engage with one another and collectively create memorable experiences (Prebensen & Foss, 2011). In the context of social commerce, value co-creation similarly occurs through customer engagement in brand-related interactive experiences (Tajvidi et al., 2021).
The core idea of value co-creation is about bringing together the resources of both firms and customers in a way that benefits both (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2012; Vargo & Lusch, 2008). Understanding how these resources are matched helps clarify who plays a role in the co-creation process and how it works (Gummesson & Mele, 2010). This process emphasizes the importance of interactions and social connections in jointly creating value (Merz et al., 2009; Varnali, 2019), value co-creation can be understood as a process driven by a network of relationships among diverse actors in an ecosystem. In the business context, ecosystems are economic communities made up of various interacting participants, including companies, customers, suppliers, competitors, and other stakeholders, who are interdependent despite being loosely connected and collectively benefit from mutual collaboration (Iansiti & Levien, 2004; Moore, 1996). For value co-creation to occur within such an ecosystem, four critical elements are required: activities, actors, positions, and the linkages between them (Adner, 2017). In the tourism sector, this framework suggests that value co-creation can be achieved by fostering strong connections among diverse actors within online travel communities. These communities function as collaborative networks, fostering sharing, interaction, and the cultivation of mutually beneficial relationships, ultimately facilitating the co-creation of value.
Value Co-creation in Online Travel Communities
Online travel communities serve as a travel ecosystem that enable a collaborative co-creation process, benefiting both travelers and tourism companies (Payne et al., 2009; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000; Vargo & Lusch, 2004). These communities facilitate relationships between tourism companies and users, supporting the co-creation of value through deeper user engagement (Buhalis & Sinarta, 2019). Interaction is a cornerstone of this process, with online interactions driving the value co-creation behaviors of online travel community users (Shen et al., 2020).
Previous tourism studies have highlighted various types of interactions involving different stakeholders. For instance, research has focused on interactions between tourist destinations and local government (Yang et al., 2021), between tourists and external environments (Y. Liu et al., 2021; Pung et al., 2020), and between tourists and residents (Xiong et al., 2021). Customer-to-customer interaction is particularly significant in brand co-creation, as it can strengthen customer loyalty to the brand (Rihova et al., 2018). Moreover, both online and offline interactions between customers and company employees play a crucial role in engaging tourists in the value co-creation process (Y. Liu et al., 2021).
While previous research on value co-creation in online travel communities has primarily focused on user-to-user interactions, particularly voluntary content-sharing activities, such as users responding to posts within these communities (Li et al., 2019; B. Liu et al., 2022; Rowley et al., 2007; Shen et al., 2020; L. Xie et al., 2021), a more comprehensive understanding requires considering the multi-actor nature of value co-creation. To optimize value for both tourism companies and community users, it is essential to go beyond user-to-user interactions and explore how interactions involving the community platform itself, along with its operational employees, contribute to the co-creation process (Fan et al., 2023; Jiang et al., 2024).
Current studies on value co-creation in online travel communities have largely focused on user engagement, revealing that the innovative designs of these communities facilitate interactive experiences and activities (Skålén et al., 2015; Tajvidi et al., 2021). Tourism studies have examined specific participation behaviors and the intensity of users’ engagement and connection with the online travel communities’ activities (Casaló et al., 2010; Lee & Hyun, 2018; Shen et al., 2020; Shin & Perdue, 2021; Yuan et al., 2016). The most common conceptualization of participation is through an active-passive dichotomy, where members who contribute content are categorized as posters (active role) and those who primarily observe are labeled as lurkers (passive role), based on whether their activities in the online travel communities are interactive or non-interactive (Chapman & Dilmperi, 2022; Malinen, 2015; Y. Zhou et al., 2021).
However, this binary classification overlooks the fluidity of participation. Users can shift between active and passive roles over time (Gray, 2004), making participation in online travel communities more dynamic than a simple dichotomy suggests. Furthermore, even passive members, while not contributing content, add value to the community by increasing visibility, traffic, and popularity (Ridings et al., 2006). This implies that the active-passive classification oversimplifies how different user types contribute to value co-creation through diverse interactions and participation patterns in the online travel communities. Therefore, it is essential to explore how different user types and their engagement behaviors contribute to the value co-creation process to gain a more comprehensive understanding of user participation in these communities.
Methodology
This study employs a phenomenological approach within the interpretivism paradigm to explore the mechanism of value co-creation in online travel communities. Netnography and semi-structured interviews were used both to gain a comprehensive understanding of how and why a tourism company and its community users collaboratively foster a travel ecosystem of value co-creation, and to improve the accuracy of the research process (Sherry, 1990). Phenomenology, which emphasizes understanding lived experiences (Englander, 2012; Kirillova, 2018), allows us to better understand the phenomenon of achieving value co-creation within the online travel community. Netnography helps researchers understand participant experiences within online communities by analyzing interactions and activities. Semi-structured interviews further explore these experiences through participants’ narratives. By asking generic questions such as “Could you please share your experience with using the M platform for your own purposes?”, we encouraged participants to share their perspectives on value co-creation based on their lived experiences of interaction and activities within the community. In this regard, the researchers attempted to understand the phenomenon and analyze the unique experiences of each individual case in detail before trying to draw broader conclusions.
A case study strategy was employed to investigate the phenomenon of achieving value co-creation in online travel communities in a real-life context (Yin, 2009). It helps to gain in-depth understanding from multiple perspectives (Creswell, 2014). In addition, due to the interpretivist nature of this study (Yu et al., 2020), a research design focusing on a single case is particularly appropriate when the case possesses unique characteristics.
It is worth noting that ethical issues were carefully considered in this qualitative study to ensure high ethical standards were upheld. Research ethics approval was sought and granted by the authors’ University Research Ethics Committee before data collection. We also recognize that since registration was required to join the online community, questions may arise if the online travel community can be considered as a public place from which to collect observation data. We share the views of previous researchers that the registration to join does not necessarily negate the public nature of online groups (Eysenbach & Till, 2001), especially considering that the online travel community studied in this research is mainly designed for sharing travel information with the public and no sensitive topics were discussed in the online group (Roberts, 2015). Furthermore, informed consent was not deemed necessary at the netnography stage to conduct non-participant observation of online discussions (Eysenbach & Till, 2001). Informed consent was sought prior to the semi-structured interviews from all offline activity participants who were identified during the netnography study and willing to be interviewed either online or in person.
Netnography
Netnography is a qualitative method that adapts ethnographic techniques to the Internet environment (Kozinets, 1999). In the context of online travel communities, where interaction and resources exchange occur through customer dialog, netnography is a commonly used method for studying and understanding value co-creation (Gebauer et al., 2013; Kelleher et al., 2011; Tynan et al., 2010). Since most netnographic researchers recommend non-participatory observation methods of data collection rather than active participation (Whalen, 2018), the authors acted as non-participating observers and adopted a structured approach to our study of the online community.
We employed a purposive sampling technique drawing from the principles of market-oriented ethnography to select our research sites (Lincoln & Guba, 1988; Wallendorf & Belk, 1989). We initially selected seven well-known online travel communities that appeared suitable for the purposes of the study, including online travel agencies with online community functionalities (e.g., Trip.com, Booking.com, Expedia), travel-related communities (e.g., M, Qyer), hotel brand communities (e.g., the Marriott Bonvoy Community), and travel review websites (e.g., Tripadvisor). Through a comparative analysis based on the social shopping travel community features discussed in the literature review, M and Trip.com were identified as the most suitable for this investigation. These platforms exhibit all the features of an online travel community, indicating their potential and resources for value co-creation in hospitality and tourism. They also meet Kozinets (2002) criteria for online community selection, aligning with the present study’s concept of online travel communities.
In March 2023, tourism company M launched an offline project, offering various activities within its community and across other online channels. This integration of physical interactions presents an intriguing avenue for examining value co-creation in a hybrid online-offline context. Consequently, after comparing the features of each of the community offers (presented in Table 2) and taking accessibilities into consideration, M was selected for our netnographic analysis. We observed its community member types, functionalities, activities including user-generated content, professional-generated posts, and offline events alongside user engagement patterns, modes of interactions, and incentives. The netnographic study addresses the first and second research objectives outlined in the Introduction. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the online travel community’s overall operations and insights into how each component of the value co-creation mechanism (actors, activities, interactions) functions.
Comparison of Different Online Travel Communities.
Semi-Structured Interviews
Interviews data built upon the findings from the netnographic study and further addressed the core research objective 3—how value co-creation is achieved within the online travel community through interactions and engagement. A total of 32 interviews were conducted from December 2022 to June 2023 with 27 community users, two of M’s business partners, and three of M’s community employees. To ensure the study’s authenticity, we also conducted on-site field observations and subsequently interviewed participants from those observations. Prior to the two main interview rounds, a pilot study of four interviews, including two active users of M, was conducted between December 2022 and January 2023. Based on the feedback received from the participants in the pilot interviews, adjustments were made to the interview structure and questions. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were then employed to identify and recruit interview participants. This combination of techniques ensured the inclusion in the final sample of individuals with unique perspectives on the research topics (Robinson, 2014).
Interviews were conducted in two rounds, using a hybrid approach for participant recruitment. The first round of 16 online interviews, from December 2022 to January 2023, coincided with the netnography study. After this first round of interviews and observation of M’s launch of offline activities, the researchers adapted the interview guide to include questions targeting participants and organizers of offline activities. A member of the research team attended the offline activities promoted in the selected community in Beijing to gain a deeper and more contextual understanding of the value co-creation activities. The second round of 14 in-person interviews was then conducted in Beijing from May to June 2023. Supplementary interviews were carried out to address any vague, incomplete, or significantly relevant elements identified in the initial interviews and to minimize the research bias associated with qualitative research (Kozinets, 2015).
Data Analysis
Thematic analysis was conducted to ensure a rich and detailed understanding of the studied phenomenon (Berbekova et al., 2021). This study follows Braun and Clarke’s (2006) suggested six stages of thematic analysis (presented in Figure 1). The first stage involved being familiar with the data by repeatedly reading (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Terry et al., 2017) and recording initial ideas regarding types of value co-creators, value co-creation activities, interactions, and co-created values. In the second and third stages, thematic analysis was conducted as a dynamic process. This involved initial coding and identification of themes by using NVivo 12 software. As a result, codes were grouped into main themes: Value co-creator types and characteristics, Value co-creation activities, Interaction between value co-creators, and Co-created value. An example of the identified themes for co-created value are listed in Table 3, together with the interview quotes.
Stages of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
An Example of Thematic Analysis for One of the Themes—Co-created Value.
In stage four, codes and themes were continually refined throughout the analysis due to their recursive nature and inherent flexibility (Berbekova et al., 2021). Persona profiles of each interviewee were created as an additional tool throughout data collection and analysis, capturing interviewees’ perspectives on positioning their role within the community, activity participated in, interactions and co-created value. Figure 2 exemplifies a persona profile of a business-partnered offline activity contributor (a frisbee club). This persona profile helps researchers to cross-validate created codes/themes at the refinement stage, and to find connections between user types, activity, interaction and co-created value. Ultimately, this enhanced our understanding of the value co-creation process. In stage five when conducting the detailed analysis of the defined themes, a cross-check of the coding scheme was implemented and concrete themes related to the research aim were defined. The results derived from the final writing up stage are presented in the following section.
Persona profile of a business-partnered offline activity contributor—an example.
Results
Value Co-creators: Typology and Characteristics
This study categorized value co-creators into external and internal groups. Within the community under study, five primary types of users emerged as external value co-creators: trip planners, life-sharers, travel influencers, offline activity contributors, and offline activity participants. There were also two internal value co-creators, viewed from both a strategic and operational perspective, namely the tourism company and community employees. These value co-creators exhibit varying characteristics with diverse engagement behaviors, and they contribute in unique ways to value co-creation in the online travel community. Table 4 provides a detailed typology and the characteristics of online travel community value co-creators based on observation and interview data. Table 5 presents the demographic characteristics of the 29 online travel community users included in this study. The “P” and “M” labels in Table 5 denote the pilot and main studies, respectively. The ratio of male interviewees to female interviewees was 15:14. The user sample exhibited an age range of 25 to 45 years, with a concentration within the 30 to 35 age group. The length of time using online travel communities ranged from 1 year to 12 years.
Typology and Characteristics of Online Travel Community Value Co-Creators.
Demographic Profile of the Informants.
External Value Co-creators
Trip Planners
Similar to so-called lurkers (Marett & Joshi, 2009) or tourists (Kozinets, 1999), trip planners are users in online communities who primarily seek travel information and advice for planning and purchasing decisions. They demonstrate one-way engagement driven by their information-centric objectives and engage in product and service purchases within the community. Despite their minimal engagement in community activities and limited interaction with other users, trip planners play a vital role in enriching the community dynamic. They often do not exclusively follow specific users, such as travel influencers, in online travel communities. Instead, they excel at gathering information from various sources within or outside the community and at making personalized plans. This indicates that the influence of travel influencers on trip planners, in terms of recommendations, may be limited.
I typically search for travel travelogues about a destination I’m interested in, I don’t specifically follow any particular travel blogger like I would follow a celebrity; I merely explore their content for information on the places I wish to visit. If I’m not captivated by their travels, I might not read further, regardless of how well-written their content may be. (M01)
Life-sharers
Life-sharers are recognized as major contributors to the community and are often referred to as posters (Lai & Chen, 2014), although their posting frequency varies. They participate actively in online community activities and contribute to the community by sharing experiences, recommendations, tips, stories, and insights related to travel and general life. However, they are less involved in social activities and making travel purchases within the community.
I mainly enjoy writing long-form travelogues on M, typically covering one-to-two-week independent trips…I like to share my photos, express my emotions, and write in a unique style. (M01)
Despite the online travel community’s initial role in facilitating socialization among like-minded individuals, it has evolved to employ interactive activities that foster relationships between users and promote personal growth, particularly impacting life-sharers. The community offers support and guidance in content generation, while also cultivating deeper personal relationships. However, the dedication to personal relationships varies among life-sharers due to their motivations. Some life-sharers share content purely for altruistic reasons and passion, with no particular interest in fostering a deep sense of belonging or commitment to the community itself. Others, more open to building profound emotional connections, can be positively influenced by interactions with other users. These life-sharers, who tend to transition to full-time travel influencers, achieve this by sharing their experience and pursuing personal goals. In turn, their deeper engagement enriches the quality and quantity of community content, benefiting other users.
Thanks to this community, I met a travel influencer at an offline event. Participating in the event inspired me to make some positive changes in our lives. We got along well, and he introduced me to some senior travel influencers in Chengdu. Since joining their social circle in 2018, I’ve gotten to know many travel influencers. We’ve also had a lot of business collaborations and shared aspects of our personal lives as well. (M08)
Travel Influencers
Known as key opinion leaders, travel influencers are considered a credible source of information, and they create professional travel-related content that significantly influences the travel decision-making of other users (Ay et al., 2019; Book & Tanford, 2020; Ge & Gretzel, 2018). In addition to their influence on their followers, there is a social relationship between travel influencers and online travel communities (Asan, 2022). This study found that travel influencers’ engagement behaviors and social relationships within the community vary depending on their background and how they became travel influencers.
Travel influencers who began as life-sharers often have a deep commitment and strong social and personal ties akin to those of an insider (Kozinets, 1999). As discussed in the Life-sharers section, this commitment can be attributed to significant social support received from a specific community during their early career stages. These types of travel influencers also play a pivotal role in shaping the community into a thriving ecosystem where friendship, personal development, and a shared appreciation of exploration intersect, benefiting all community members and demonstrating their commitment to its ongoing growth and success. They remain active within the community even when they gain popularity on other platforms, thus showing gratitude to the community. Nevertheless, transitioning from a life-sharer to a travel influencer can alter their engagement patterns, with a newfound emphasis on economic benefits over building social connections, leading to a greater focus on self-promotion to achieve financial gains.
Aligned with Kozinets (1999) concept of “devotees,” some travel influencers contracted with multi-channel network companies participate actively in online travel communities. Despite their enthusiasm for content sharing, these influencers exhibit low commitment to any one community due to their involvement across multiple online platforms. They prioritize communities with higher commercial potential, seeking opportunities for monetization and brand partnerships to maximize their reach and profitability. Their focus lies in building professional connections rather than fostering deeper personal relationships within the community. This shift becomes particularly pronounced when they transition to full-time influencer careers, as evidenced by their own words: After getting acquainted with some friends who are full-time travel bloggers, I was also subtly influenced by them, and then I started to get in touch with the industry of self-media and travel bloggers. After that, I often hung out with them, and I have gained some knowledge and skills in this area, often post UGC, mainly because I like it. At the beginning, I didn’t think about it as a professional or earning a lot of money. (M10) Since I’m now a full-time travel blogger, the change in status makes me think more about the benefits. (M07) To be honest, M might still serve a social purpose for the average users, but not for us. As travel bloggers, our focus is more on achieving online exposure and monetization. (M05)
Offline Activity Contributors
Online communities can extend into offline settings (Hardy et al., 2012), and previous research highlights the role of travel influencers in facilitating offline activities (Asan, 2022). With the evolution of tourism into a lifestyle concept, tourism-related activities are no longer confined to holiday seasons (Franklin & Crang, 2001). Reflecting this trend, contemporary online travel communities organize activities related to tourism that are integrated into daily life. It is possible for all community users, not only the travel influencers, to initiate offline activities and engage in social interactions. Offline activity contributors have emerged in parallel with the community’s growing emphasis on offline activities. They actively initiate and organize leisure-based offline activities or events.
Offline activity contributors, which are called “weekend captains” in the studied community, can be broadly categorized as individuals or entities. Individual offline activity contributors, who are often non-business partners, are enthusiastic individuals with specific skills or interests. Business-partnered offline activity contributors fall into the entity category and may own hobby clubs or workshops; they collaborate with the community to acquire new customers and promote their businesses. From the tourism company’s perspective, partnering with such contributors, particularly those in the business category, can generate significant strategic value. The collaboration expands the community’s range of service offerings and enhances overall user experience.
A weekend captain you can understand as a club, you can understand is a florist, you can understand is an event venue, but any one he/she needs to be the initiator of any of the activities that lead to an event, he can be a weekend captain… but we are working with more of a club or an organization, and we also work with individuals, such as a florist who runs a studio or a healer, as long as they can lead an event on their own, but they lack exposure and a community, we can make it a weekend captain. (M18)
Offline Activity Participants
Actively engaging in offline activities, these participants form another distinctive category of offline value co-creators; their engagement is driven by a quest for a novel lifestyle, leisure experiences, and social needs, a trend notably amplified in the post-pandemic landscape.
I’m used to being alone, and my social circle is quite small. On the platform, I see how colorful people’s lives are, and I want to step out and see the world through others’ eyes. I also participate in interesting events. We mainly chat to socialize and try new food. At first, I didn’t want to socialize; I just wanted to eat good food. But as I ate with others, I gradually became more open and developed a desire to socialize. (M24)
Internal Value Co-creators
Tourism Company as a Strategic Co-creator
The tourism company operates as an orchestrator, strategically bringing in individuals with the capability to contribute and integrate resources. The orchestration is achieved by leveraging online communities as an interactive customer engagement platform in the value co-creation process. The community’s identity within this process varies according to the audience and contextual factors. In the online context, it serves a dual role as an interest-oriented content-sharing platform and a social commerce marketplace. It fosters customer-to-customer interaction and employs incentives to stimulate user engagement in content sharing. From a business standpoint, the community functions as a social commerce marketplace, facilitating the purchase of online travel products. In the offline context, the community coordinates offline engagement and seeks mutually beneficial strategic business relationships with valued partners.
I think M platform is like a big dining table with a variety of dishes to choose from. You can pick and choose what you want to try. When you participate in an activity on the platform, you assume a temporary identity. This can lead to better organized and longer-lasting interactions with others. (M23) I started using M to book flights for my trips… Then I discovered that M has travel guides for researching and planning trips. I also enjoy seeing other people’s travel experiences and getting inspiration for my own future trips. (M30)
Community Employees as Operational Co-creators
Designated online operations employees play a multifaceted role in managing both online and offline activities within the community. They have distinct responsibilities toward offline activity contributors and participants through online interactions. Operational employees are crucial in assessing potential offline activity contributors, ensuring diversity and quality standards, and fostering participant engagement. This involves supervising activity details to align with community policies, facilitating effective communication with contributors to enhance post appeal, and offering guidance on reasonable pricing for event viability. If an offline activity contributor finds it challenging to attract participants, operations employees intervene by promoting the activity to stimulate higher levels of participation and engagement. Additionally, operations employees actively collect feedback from participants, thus serving as a catalyst for the continuous improvement and refinement of forthcoming activities.
The staff will review to see how many times you have held an event, what community you have posted the event on, roughly how many people have participated, based on these data before you will be reviewed and approved, indicating that you have the potential to be a team leader, you can publish the event at least to ensure that it is held. (M27)
The Value Co-creation Mechanism
Building on prior studies (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2008), this research proposes that the value co-creation mechanism (Figure 1) integrates three key elements: value co-creators’ engagement, resource integration activities, and interactions.
In line with Storbacka et al. (2016), we understand value co-creators’ engagement as their willingness to partake and their active involvement in an interactive process of integrating resources. In essence, as contributors engage and interact, they facilitate resource integration and value co-creation. The diverse nature of value co-creators leads to a spectrum of resource integration activities, ranging from the company’s tourism product development endeavors (Füller et al., 2006) to experience-oriented activities that are co-managed by community users and community employees.
Storbacka et al. (2016) classify engagement activities into co-production and value-in-use activities, according to resource usage and actor presence. Adapting this to the tourism-related activities, previous researchers have defined tourist engagement as participation in and connection with a company’s offerings or activities, which can be initiated by either the tourist or the company (Vivek et al., 2012). Similarly, this study categorizes activities based on whether they are initiated externally or internally by value co-creators. These activities involve various forms of engagement and interaction that contribute to value co-creation.
As suggested by Breidbach et al. (2014), value co-creation occurs within an engagement platform that accommodates both digital and physical interactions. Our findings further suggest that interactions can occur both online and offline. As Figure 3 illustrates, these interactions can be further categorized based on the nature of value co-creators’ engagement and resource integration activities. Customer-to-business interactions involve community users actively contributing to enhance the experience, thereby creating value-in-use that benefits both users and the tourism company. Customer-to-customer interactions focus on users establishing connections with one another, fostering a vibrant community atmosphere and enhancing user experience, to the benefit of both users and the company’s community. Business-to-customer interactions, initiated by the company, aim to encourage users to engage more actively in community activities while providing value to them. Lastly, business-to-business interactions involve collaborations between the company and its business partners in pursuit of joint business ventures. These occur primarily online to foster exposure and customer acquisition while ensuring a seamless user experience across digital and physical contexts.
Value co-creation mechanism in online travel communities.
Given the different types of interactions, eight co-created values materialize as the outcomes of these interactions. In addition to the established values (depicted in the gray boxes with white outlines in Figure 3), this study introduces three novel co-created values (highlighted in the white boxes with dark outlines), which are detailed in the subsequent section.
User Engagement in Customer-to-Business Interaction for Externally Initiated Activities
Content and Offline Activity Contribution
The community’s vibrancy and popularity are vividly reflected in its diverse array of travel-related content and engaging offline activities. This dynamic richness is fueled by online user-generated content, such as travel itineraries, tips, recommendations, and reviews, posted by life-sharers and travel influencers. Concurrently, offline activities encompass interest-based initiatives spearheaded by activity contributors bridging the online enthusiasm into the real world. Both online contributions and offline engagements are integral to the functionality of an online travel community. Online voluntary contributions offer valuable travel insights to fellow members, while offline activities enrich community members’ experience in physical settings: I think the value I bring to the community is in enriching its activities. (M27)
In addition, in the offline context, both contributors and participants exhibit a willingness to promote the community and its activities by sharing their experiences on social media using the official event pictures. However, it is noted that distinct user groups exist for online and offline participation, often stemming from differences in how initial information is accessed.
Taking Partial Responsibility on the Company’s Behalf
In the dynamic ecosystem of online travel communities, esteemed and sociable community users, who are often recognizable figures within the community, serve as intermediaries for the tourism company. This role is particularly prominent among travel influencers who evolved from life-sharers. Supported by the company, these influential users organize informal offline gatherings aimed at enhancing communication, facilitating knowledge sharing, and strengthening bonds among community members.
Community users are further encouraged to collaborate closely with the company, both online and offline. They contribute to defining operational specifics, selecting activity themes, choosing locations, and recruiting participants from within the community. This collaborative approach fosters a user-friendly environment, where innovative service ideas are generated for the benefit of all users, facilitating meaningful connections among them: For example, if I have some good ideas for different themes of offline activities in Shanghai that can attract users or can be converted into output (practice), we will spontaneously communicate with the community, and the community will give us some financial or logistical support. (M10)
User Engagement in Customer-to-Customer Interaction for Externally Initiated Activities
Peer Help and Support
Consistent with Yi and Gong (2013), this study found that community users’ helping behaviors played a significant role in contributing to value co-creation. Peer support encompasses activities such as responding to other users’ questions and liking or commenting on each other’s posts. These acts of helpful and constructive engagement, facilitated by community users, take place primarily online, and they contribute to fostering a positive and welcoming ambiance within the community.
Exchanging Information and Reciprocal Communication
The rise of technology has made online information exchange and communication more accessible. Despite the absence of group chat features in the online travel community under study, we found that WeChat, widely recognized as the primary personal and business communication tool in China, has become indispensable for information exchange, communication, and social networking. Not only does WeChat facilitate seamless interaction online, but it also fosters strong connections between online and offline engagements. Therefore, WeChat groups, created by community members, serve as hubs for discussions, information exchange, and event planning: We maintained a substantial WeChat group chat comprising several hundred individuals residing in the same city. Within this group, we would share information about events that piqued our interest… where we intended to convene and celebrate together. (M10)
Creating Friendships
Real-life friendships often originate in online contexts, where community users gather and engage in various online activities to establish social connections. Physical meetups play a pivotal role in strengthening these ties and fostering deeper friendships. Users who participate actively in online activities often progress to meeting others in person. Similarly, for offline activity contributors and participants who are seeking social fulfillment, the process begins with online interactions, where friendships are initiated and maintained. However, these friendships are consolidated through frequent face-to-face meetups and continued engagement in offline activities over time: When we attended these offline activities, we often recognized individuals we had encountered online before. If we felt that our personalities were quite compatible, we would exchange WeChat contacts and subsequently engage in more activities together. Over time, these connections developed into real-life friendships. (M08)
User Engagement in Business-to-Customer Interaction for Internally Initiated Activities
Utilizing Incentives to Encourage User Engagement
The community employs diverse incentives to promote both online and offline engagement among its members. Incentives range from economic rewards, such as gifts and online shopping vouchers, to non-economic benefits such as enhanced online visibility and traffic. These are aimed at incentivizing the creation of online travel-related content and the initiation of offline activities within the community: The community encourages us to complete event recap notes… Regularly posting recap notes can lead to rewards such as gifts, photo opportunities, and more. (M25)
Supervising and Monitoring Offline Activities
Community employees have the responsibility of supervising and monitoring offline activities posted online to maintain content quality and manage administrative aspects of activity organization online; they often fulfill these responsibilities in collaboration with offline activity contributors. However, it is important to note that these interactions do not guarantee active user engagement. This is because the engagement strategies align with the fundamental standards in the community’s daily operations, causing users to perceive these incentives as routine rather than innovative: I encountered an instance where my activity didn’t pass the community employees’ review because I included in the introduction that participants could join our own community post-activity and receive discounts. However, the community prohibits Offline Activity Contributors from promoting their private groups, thus it’s essential not to expose personal distribution channels. (M25)
Collecting Feedback and User Experience
Invitations to participate in online testing, such as pre-tests for new functions before release, are strategically sent to a selected group of highly engaged and long-standing community users who have shared a strong rapport with the company. These users are chosen based on their anticipated interest in engaging with new functionalities, which often involve significant adjustments to the community’s daily operations such as updates to live streaming and changes to the travel blog editing interface. This collaborative feedback-sharing approach between the community and its users serves as a catalyst for innovative service development: One of the most significant changes I recall was when the community extended an invitation to a group of long-term users for a beta testing. (M06)
Community employees also lead discussions on users’ experiences and gather feedback after offline activities, which users may voluntarily share. Community users in offline activities receive a feedback survey distributed within the WeChat group to gather comprehensive insights and reflections on their activity experiences.
User Engagement in Business-to-Business Interaction for Internally Initiated Activities
Establishing a Business Partnership
The community serves as an effective platform for achieving business objectives for both the tourism company and their business partners. This study primarily examines the long-term business partnerships between the tourism company and offline activity contributors. The management of online groups is a joint effort between the company and the activity contributor to ensure coordinated engagement strategies. The collaboration entails appointing an employee for online operations and communication with the contributor, and then engaging in detailed discussions about offline operation methods and new product designs. Regular activity promotions are conducted in collaboration with activity contributors to encourage active participation, while streamlined online registration processes facilitate ease of sign-up: We initiate activities on the community, the community will appoint an employee who is in charge of our collaboration, but that person is only responsible for online operation, including registration, manage online group… All operations on the community are managed exclusively by the community employee. (M19)
Co-Managing Online Group Chat for Offline Activities
Apart from user-created group chats for exchanging information, temporary group chats, overseen jointly by community staff and activity contributors, are established for coordinating offline events. These co-managed chats primarily function as one-way interaction channels for broadcasting announcements and addressing logistical inquiries regarding offline activities, with limited user engagement: Upon establishing the group, a community employee is assigned as the group administrator. (M17) The group primarily serves as a means of notification. For instance, it’s used to communicate important details such as things to be mindful of, the event’s location, and where participants can retrieve photos of the activity. (M19)
Interestingly, some non-business-partnered offline activity contributors discreetly invite participants to join their self-owned WeChat group for organizing similar upcoming activities and acquiring new customers. It is worth noting that this practice is conducted unobtrusively because it contradicts the community’s rules, which prohibit the distribution of private groups under the supervision of community employees.
Co-created Value in Online Travel Communities
The findings of this research identify eight dimensions of co-created value within an online community, summarized in Figure 3.
Functional Value
Functional value refers to the utility and performance of online content and the quality of tourism products and services acquired. It is co-created through voluntary, helpful, and constructive activities, such as content sharing and offline activity contributions, which ultimately lead to enrichment of high-quality, content diverse, offline activities.
The value I bring to the platform is in enriching the community’s activities. (M27)
Sánchez et al. (2006) outlined four dimensions of the functional value of a tourism product: quality of purchased products/services, price, installation, and professionalism of staff. In the online realm, price is not applicable to online travel content posted by users, but it does apply to offline activities.
Emotional Value
Busser and Shulga (2018) introduced the concept of affective response to denote an individual’s overall emotional reaction to co-creation. However, they did not differentiate the causes of a variety of emotional responses during value co-creation. In the present study, to define the concept more precisely, emotional value is derived from the feelings or affective states that result from subjective and objective factors during participation in an activity. These subjective factors encompass the individual’s personal characteristics, motivation for engagement, and duration of platform usage. For example, these emotions encompass the enjoyment derived from voluntary sharing: As a content creator, I experience the joy of sharing. (M02)
Objective factors of the activities, such as the characteristics, design, and procedure, which are maintained through the collective efforts of employees and community users, can also shape emotional value, particularly in the offline realm. For example, the company-provided professional photography services make participants feel more comfortable engaging in activities and generate a sense of immersion; likewise, the predictability of offline activities contributes to a sense of security for participants: Throughout the experience, you don’t have to think about anything else, and have the immersion of experiencing the activity with your whole being. (M29) The activities on the platform are more regular and cyclical, and you can see the schedule of activities in advance. For me, it’s the regularity that makes me feel secure and in control of my time. (M24)
Social Value
Social value is the utility derived from the product’s ability to enhance one’s social self-concept (Sweeney & Soutar, 2001). In the travel context, this value pertains to the augmentation of one’s social self-concept resulting from interactions with the tourism company, employees, and other community users. Unlike Sánchez et al. (2006), who distinguished the social value of the travel agency and tourism packages, our findings suggest that social value in online travel communities is primarily derived from the quality of interactions and the collective community experience, not directly tied to specific tourism products, services purchased, or offline activities. For example, an activity organizer obtains social approval and encouragement from the community: That day, the activity itself was quite ordinary, however… the community brings together a group of people who share similar interests. So, regardless of the type of activity, even without much effort from the organizers, we naturally create our own connections and interactions. (M29) All of these initiatives have been propelled forward by the encouragement of everyone around me. (M27)
Customer-to-Business Innovation Value
Drawing on Shin and Perdue (2021), customer-to-business innovation value in online travel communities is seen as the community’s capability to enhance users’ knowledge-sharing activities, leading to tourism service enhancement, development, and innovation. This value emerges through collaborative feedback-sharing among community users. For example, the platform invites long-term users to provide input on new functionality before its official launch: The community also frequently asks for our opinions on the ways of change and transformation. (M08)
This value also emerges through collaboration with travel influencers who share their experiences, thereby providing valuable insights for beginners seeking growth in the community: There are mentorship opportunities where individuals like Life Sharers serve as mentors, guiding people who wish to become new contributors for Q&A on how to create more improved and higher-quality posts. (M07)
Transactional Value
Previous research has identified transactional value in economics-related concepts, such as “price for money” (Sweeney & Soutar, 2001) and “consumer return on investment” (Mathwick et al., 2001). In this study’s context, price for money is categorized under transactional value. Bridging a gap in the literature regarding economic value’s impact on subsequent customer engagement, this study further differentiates between short-term and long-term transactional value. Short-term transactional value arises from community users’ immediate perception of value (in economic terms or price for money), achieved through collaborative activities: Being recognized as a Star Activity Leader for several months now, and one of the benefits is that I can receive a reimbursement of 200 yuan for organizing each activity. (M17)
Long-term return on investment has an indirect but lasting impact on all value co-creators involved: I have limited exposure to offline customers, so I’m attempting to leverage this platform to generate online traffic, essentially revitalizing my studio. For the same reason that M is doing it to develop this offline activity, I think it’s a way to activate its community. (M25)
It is essential to emphasize that the company’s policy of not imposing commission fees for launching offline activity facilitation ensures immediate transactional value for contributors, fostering their continued engagement and long-term value creation for the tourism company. However, under specific circumstances, short-term and long-term transactional value can exhibit a paradoxical relationship. From the platform’s perspective, to ensure the sustainability of each activity, organizers should not elevate pricing excessively; in other words, a higher short-term value might inadvertently lead to a reduction in long-term benefits: The community staff suggests that the offline activity contributors lower the price to an appropriate level to ensure that enough people sign up for participation. (M25)
Exchange Value
Social exchange theory suggests individual behaviors in social interaction are driven by an expectation of reciprocity (Chan & Li, 2010). However, given the variety of users with varying levels of engagement and their different motivations for participation, this study finds that the expectation of reciprocity is not always fulfilled, as the value received may not equal the value given. Online communities use incentives to encourage users to contribute valuable content and engage in interactions. However, it is important to note that incentives alone do not guarantee sustained user engagement and participation: The platform encourages us to complete activity reflection notes for some benefits… However, I’m not entirely familiar with how it operates, I might find it cumbersome. Similarly, my friend who’s constantly swamped with work and has limited time doesn’t usually complete these forms. (M25)
Recognition Value
Recognition serves as a key dimension of value co-creation, representing an acknowledgment of beneficiaries’ inherent worth driven by both relational and individualistic motivations. Users driven by relational motivations seek psychological and social bonding, whereas users with individualistic motivations pursue personal benefits, such as status and career enhancement (Hsieh et al., 2022). This section focuses on recognition driven by individualistic motivations as relational motivations have been addressed in the discussion on social value.
Individualistic benefits encompass gains derived from participation in community activities, such as acquiring learning benefits from peer insights (Riedl & Seidel, 2018) and unlocking new career opportunities by signaling one’s skills to potential clients, employers, and other business partners (Hars & Ou, 2002). This study reveals that community recognition has a positive impact on online exposure, traffic, and the acquisition of new customers, as well as new opportunities for commercial collaborations: Gaining visibility though community participation has opened doors to opportunities such as collaborations with magazines and diverse brands that reach out to me after seeing my platform posts. (M05)
This study also finds that recognition value tends to increase when the tourism company holds high influence in the industry. For users mainly driven by economic benefit, recognition value holds less significance if the community is not their primary source of income: The platform’s value to me is closely tied to its status and prominence. In the past, when the platform was thriving and influential, it brought me significant benefits… because of the platform’s advantageous position, being associated with it as a Key Opinion Leader of M adds to our own value… However, over time, the platforms’ reputation has waned, and the value it contributes to my profile has gradually diminished as its status declined. Our experiences and achievements are intertwined with the platform’s trajectory. (M08) I don’t really care if the platform marks my content as curated content or not if the platform makes me money. (M09)
Transcendent Value
Value co-creation activities transcend mere participation, embodying a quest for meaningful engagement. Co-created value involves a personal appraisal of the meaningfulness of a service (Busser & Shulga, 2018), taking into account both the contributions made and the achievements realized through collaboration. Additionally, an individual’s self-perceived mastery and psychological co-creation significantly shape their value perceptions. Transcendent value not only reflects participants’ appraisals of the community and their individual contributions and efforts, but also shows their belief in recognizing self-empowerment when engaging in value co-creation activities. For example, participants in offline activities actively seek fresh, unique experiences to enrich their lives and discover the transcendent meaningfulness inherent in the experience itself during participation. The perceived meaningfulness may strongly influence their decision to continue participating. Moreover, this pursuit of meaningfulness signifies individuals’ mastery in taking control and being empowered in their lives. Individuals hold strong beliefs about themselves and about the community. Community users perceive the meaningfulness of participating in value co-creation activities, expressing appreciation to the community and reinforcing their self-affirmation: Seeing others’ colorful and vibrant lives reassures me that I, too, can lead a fulling life if I want to. (M24)
Conclusions
One of the unexpected findings of this research is the important role played by offline activity contributors in value co-creation. This includes both users who are not business partners and those who are formal business partners of the online travel community. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to comprehensively identify both internal (tourism company and employee) and external value co-creators (community user) within online travel communities. Eight external value co-creators are differentiated based on their engagement and their specific value-creation activities, namely: trip planners, life-sharers, travel influencers, offline activity contributors, offline activity participants, tourism company, and community employees. The study further identifies eight co-created values: functional value, emotional value, social value, customer-to-business innovation value, transactional value, exchange value, recognition value, and transcendent value, providing a comprehensive overview of the multifaceted contributions.
More intriguingly, the significance of multi-actor interactions in an online travel community is revealed in this research. It provides novel insights into multi-actor interactions in facilitating value co-creation, moving beyond the user-to-user interaction focus of previous research (Jiang et al., 2024). Furthermore, it reframes the role of companies from simply providing an engagement platform (Barile et al., 2017; Bijmolt et al., 2019) to providing a strategic value co-creating mechanism through business-to-business interactions. Employees accordingly function as operational value co-creators, handling daily business-to-customer interactions.
Theoretical Contributions
This study makes several theoretical contributions. First, it addresses a limitation in existing research on online travel communities, which has predominantly focused on customer engagement within indirect, static customer-to-customer interactions. This narrow focus emphasizes online experience sharing through customer-to-customer interaction, neglecting interactions that involve tourism companies and their employees (Casaló et al., 2010; Shin & Perdue, 2023; P. Zhang et al., 2021). By emphasizing the need for a dynamic setting, the present study sheds light on the value co-creation mechanism in an online travel community that incorporates experience sharing, social interactions, and online shopping functionalities. It supplements existing research by identifying four types of interactions among value co-creators during both online and offline activities (Shin & Perdue, 2023), thereby providing a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics among community users, tourism companies, and employees. It advances the understanding of a variety of interactions in determining the vibrancy of online travel communities (B. Liu et al., 2022) and enriches the user-employee interaction in facilitating value co-creation (Y. Liu et al., 2021). This expansion facilitates the identification of value co-creators and value co-creation activities in the tourism contexts.
Second, the literature on the types of online community members has adhered to an active/passive dichotomy, labeling individuals as posters or lurkers (Bryant et al., 2005; Chapman & Dilmperi, 2022). This approach overlooks the interplay between user engagement patterns and the diverse user demographics within the online community, and ignores the fundamental principle of value co-creation being a collaborative effort with multiple actors involved. This study challenges the conventional dichotomy of online community members by proposing a more nuanced and varied spectrum of community users and engagement, each with its own distinct level of participation. The typology and characteristics of online travel community value co-creators developed through this research contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the value co-creation mechanism by elucidating the unique roles and contributions of various value co-creators.
Third, this study goes beyond previous examinations of brand-customer interactions (Romero & Molina, 2011) to include a variety of customer-initiated activities within the service-dominant logic perspective. In the context of the contemporary landscape of online travel communities, characterized by a diverse array of user-driven activities, this study emphasizes the necessity of identifying a broader spectrum of interactions facilitated by a wider range of activities. The shift toward user-driven activities underscores the evolving dynamics of customer interactions with different stakeholders.
Practical Implications
The findings of this study provide valuable insights for tourism companies seeking to leverage online communities to engage a broader audience of customers and service providers in co-creating value for all stakeholders. First, recognizing and understanding the distinct roles of value co-creators allows hospitality and tourism companies to implement tailored incentives and strategies for enhanced online and offline engagement that generate value for all parties. This study suggests that current engagement in the online and offline realms are not fully connected, but that online communication tools are used bridge this gap. It is suggested that aligning online and offline user participation through communication tools is crucial for effective value co-creation and presents a promising opportunity to achieve this synchronization.
Furthermore, this study finds that the impact of influencers on user purchase intentions appears limited, despite the community’s online purchase features. Community users trust personal experiences and active exploration, favoring and relying more on advice from life-sharers drawing on their own insights. This phenomenon may be attributed to the decentralized operating structure of the online community, where authority and control are distributed among users rather than being centralized by the community, fostering a heightened sense of skepticism among users toward endorsements or authority figures. This calls for tourism companies to strategically navigate the decentralized nature of community operations to foster trust among users and mutually beneficial relationships with external value co-creators.
Third, the findings of this research highlight the importance of hybrid collaboration in online travel communities. By actively involving service providers in both realms and positioning the company as a supportive and facilitative element in online interactions, tourism businesses can spur intrinsic motivation among service providers and community members, driving them to collaboratively create memorable experiences and deliver value to the company.
Lastly, these findings have broader applicability beyond travel communities, offering strategies for traditional online brand communities and review websites to foster environments conducive to value co-creation. For example, implementing interactive mechanisms such as personalized rewards, gamification, and targeted content could invigorate user communities, contributing to their growth and success.
Limitations and Future Research
This investigation into the value co-creation mechanism was conducted within a single online travel community with social commerce features. Future inquiries encompassing multiple case studies across a variety of social commerce platforms could complement the current study to give a more comprehensive understanding of value co-creation dynamics.
While the focus of this study primarily rested on the contributions of external value co-creators, an in-depth exploration of internal value co-creators, particularly how tourism companies strategically and operationally manage value co-creation, could enrich our understanding of these internal dynamics.
Similarly, the scope of this study was limited to a tourism company that primarily utilizes online social media, for example, Xiaohongshu and WeChat, for the promotion and coordination of offline activities. Future research could delve into the efficiency and effectiveness of using multi-channel communication in facilitating value co-creation, assisting companies in gaging the optimal reliance on social media for enhancing communication and engagement.
Lastly, this study did not exhaustively elucidate how interactions influence community users’ participation in online shopping. Future research could further explore this area to reveal the intricate dynamics and contributing factors to this phenomenon, providing insights into the interaction between social interactions and online shopping behavior.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-jtr-10.1177_00472875251322515 – Supplemental material for Exploring the Value Co-creation Mechanism in Online Travel Communities
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jtr-10.1177_00472875251322515 for Exploring the Value Co-creation Mechanism in Online Travel Communities by Xiaoyi Xu, Xuan Lorna Wang and Bora Kim in Journal of Travel Research
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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