Co-creation in Club Tourism

Abstract

The tourism industry is facing difficulty meeting new demands from customers who are looking for new experiences though travel. While many competitors are struggling, Club Tourism successfully expanded its business by leveraging co-creation with customers, innovating their products, services, business processes and offering a unique customer experience. Club Tourism focuses on co-creation by creating customer communities called “clubs”. These clubs targets senior citizens who are willing to make new friends through club activities. Club Tourism employees not only participate as guides but also participate as facilitators in club activities. Through this direct interaction with customers, they gather first-hand feedback on requests of future destination of tours and activities and so on. This offers a new way of conducting direct marketing, and this enables the company to develop new tours in a more customer-centric way. The company was also able to expand its business without additional cost, by leveraging existing customers to participate in the business process. Customers also took part in the trip, not only as customers but also as company employees, for example, as a tour guide. This process of co-creation with customers represents a good example of a paradigm shift that companies should emulate/embrace, in the context of difficult market conditions/in their attempt to tackle difficult market conditions.