Understanding customer-centric socialization in tourism services

Abstract

Co-creating value with customers has been a strategic focus for tourism companies. Grounded on the organizational socialization theory, this study examines a framework of customer-centric socialization process for tourism providers and how it affects tourists’ co-creation readiness (CCR) and co-creation behavior (CCB). Through 227 tourists’ responses, the study confirms that tourist education positively influences tourists’ CCB, and CCR partially mediates this effect. Furthermore, the individual difference in personal involvement significantly moderates this mediated relationship, wherein high-involvement tourists exhibit lower CCR than low-involvement tourists when tourist-education quality is low. The study concludes that tourist education is the key to promoting tourists’ CCR and CCB and completing the customer-centric socialization process in tourism.