Exploring the Role of Information and Communication Technologies in Co-creation Processes within Cultural Heritage Tourism

This study examines the role of information and communication technologies in supporting cocreation processes within cultural heritage tourism experiences. While there is an increasing appreciation of the fact that digital technologies act as significant facilitators of interaction and value co-creation, limited attention has been paid to how these technologies are distributed across different stages and dimensions of the co-creation process and how they relate to citizen behavioral outcomes. In this study, a theoretical framework was used to investigate the presence of the digital tools in the process of antecedents, service encounters, and post-experience behaviors of a sample of tourism heritage experiences derived from an earlier systematic literature review. The findings show that the use of information and communication technologies in feedback co-creation forms and feedback behavior dimensions is prevalent but underutilized in earlier stages such as antecedents and enabling conditions for co-creation. Furthermore, these technologies are rarely used in co-design and co-production activities, despite co-production being the most commonly occurring form in the sample. This situation is also noticed in the citizen behaviors outcomes. Although advocacy is a common dimension in the sample, just a few examples were facilitated by digital tools. Overall, the results highlight a different use of digital tools across co-creation processes and suggest opportunities to increase digital engagement in heritage tourism. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the technology-enabled co-creation by identifying several gaps for future research.