The Effect of Value Co-Creation on Behavioural Intention and Satisfaction with Tourism Resources in Lagos State, Nigeria

Value co-creation as a concept states that “consumption is co-produced by a manufacturer and its consumers” (Wang, Hsich, & Yen 2011). It is related to the fact that the time and effort that are invested by tourists into their travel plans pose a value to them that differs from value gained from other goods and services (Prebensen, Vitterso, & Dahl, 2013). Value co-creation is evolving as the modern frontier and leading strategy in the marketing world and is gaining relevance as one of the most provocative, paradigm-shifting, and practical concepts available in the field (Fisher & Smith, 2011). Marketers and manufacturers are beginning to identify the merits and difficulties of involving consumers in their marketing process (Cova & Dalli, 2009), which is not surprising as consumer participation and co-creation processes can improve destination business performance and value derived by the consumers (Osei-Frimpong, Wilson & Owusu-Frimpong, 2015).

Generally, there is a belief system that the greater the amount of time and effort a tourist puts into an experience, the greater the positive experience value gained by the tourist (Prebensen, Vitterso & Dahl, 2013). The idea of co-creation is to set free and combine the creative active energies and efforts of diverse tourists, so that it consequently forms both their individual tourism experience and additionally the economics of the tourism destination that provided it (Gouillart, 2010).

Recently, the roles of consumers have been understood to shift from passive recipients of goods and services to active participants in tourism destination activities (Fournier & Avery, 2011). While the traditional firm-centric view is centralized on the total control of destinations, experience co-creation involves consumers as active participants as makers of their own experiences due to personalised and direct collaborations and involvement with the tourism destination (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004b). Yang and Mattila (2016) opined that the terms of value and experience are related, which is due to the fact that consumers ascribe value to experiences and also that the main results are the experiences co-created by consumers and destinations so as to obtain value (Suntikul & Jachna, 2016).

Specifically, tourists become more active participants in deciding what to do during the travel, interacting with destination employees, influencing other tourists, and deciding how to satisfy their personality and the needs associated with it (Buonincontri, Morvillo, Okumus & Van Niekerk, 2017). Tourism destinations have now identified the tourists’ power and the relevance of co-opting a demand-centric strategy in which co-creation is the main factor, providing the capacity to create value and positively influence the competitive advantage of the destination in the market (Mathis, Kim, Uysal, Sirgy & Prebensen, 2016).

There has been growing attention on consumers playing the part of resource integrators in modern literatures (Navarro, Andreu & Cervera, 2014; Prebensen Kim & Uysal, 2016). According to these researchers, tourists participate in co-creating value with destination employees, other tourists, and the destination setting (Prebensen & Foss, 2011; Verhoef, Reinartz & Krafft, 2010). Tourists who actively partake in creating value in the consumption process are identified as more satisfied than passive tourists (Navarro, Llinares & Garzon, 2016). Active participation has been shown to include physical and psychological participation (Bertella, 2014). Physical participation involves movements of parts of the body (Campos, Mendes, Oom do Valle & Scott, 2016), while psychological participation involves a tourist's cognitive actions, such as learning, collecting, and sharing information, and knowledge retention (Yi & Gong, 2013). Both co-creation patterns are considered to result in feelings such as excitement, joy, and contentment (Holbrook, 2000).

Many researchers all over the world have described involvement as enduring because the level of importance a tourist ascribes to a leisure activity depends on personal values, which are less influenced by variations induced by situational stimuli (Kyle & Chick, 2004). Also, Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen (2016) described value co-creation as the result of tourist involvement in destination activities, previous researches have revealed that value co-creation is a continuous process where destination service providers and tourists interact with each other and as a result, value is co-created (Grönroos & Voima, 2013). Though the important role of tourists in value creation processes has been shown, there is need for more knowledge on how and where value is created in the tourism consumption processes (Rihova, Buhalis, Moital & Gouthro 2015). This study thus assesses how active participation as a value co-creation process influences tourists’ satisfaction.

The potential for consumers to undertake a participative role was birthed in the 1970s by authors such as Lovelock and Young (1979) and improved upon throughout the 1980s and ‘90s in collaboration with the development of the services marketing field (Bettencourt, 1997; Bowen & Jones, 1986; Larsson & Bowen, 1989; Schneider & Bowen, 1995). Consumer participation study is enormously represented by three streams (Dong, Evans & Zou, 2008). The first of these is an economic rationale for improving the extent of consumer participation which hinges on economic profits by adopting consumers as substitutes for labour (Larsson & Bowen, 1989; Lovelock & Young, 1979), an approach which was faulted by Bendapudi and Leone (2003), who identified the need to assess the effect of participation on consumer satisfaction.

The second stream explores the management of consumers, the utilization of similar techniques of employee management (Bendapudi & Leone, 2003), and the potential profits of this approach on the perception of service quality through improved socialization (Claycomb, Lengnick-Hall & Inks, 2001). Schneider and Bowen (1995) identified how firms that encourage consumer involvement consider the consumers ‘as part of the firm's human resources’.

The third stream focuses on motivation to co-create. A greater percentage of this stream focuses on self-service technologies (Meuter, Bitner, Ostrom & Brown, 2005; Reinders, Dabholkar & Frambach, 2008) and the relevance of consumers’ readiness variables and motivational traits that instigate trial. Essentially, studies on consumer participation reports that increase and improve consumers’ level of participation will make the consumers more interested and involved in the co-creation process, thereby improving their loyalty (Dong et al., 2008; Wilson Zeithaml, Bitner & Gremler, 2008).

Tourists can no longer be described as passive recipients of products or services but rather as proactive participants in the value co-creation process (Vargo & Lusch, 2004a). This assertion projects tourist involvement as a strategy in enhancing destination performance, superiority, profitability and competitiveness in the tourism market (Hollebeek, 2011b). This assertion also births co-creation experience, innovative opportunities, tourist satisfaction and recommendations, tourist loyalty (Brodie, Ilic, Juric, & Hollebeek, 2013) and improved learning outcomes (Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002). Tourist involvement in destination activities thus helps to predict their behaviours (Brodie & Hollebeek, 2011), and this has attracted the attention of many researchers and destination managers all over the world.

The study was carried out in Lekki Conservation Centre, which lies between latitude 6°27′N and longitude 3°23′E, and Omu resort, lying between latitude 6°49′N and longitude 3°75′E, Lagos state, Nigeria. A total number of 384 visitors were sampled for this study; these responses were obtained through the Krecjie and Morgan (1970) sampling method. The study made use of questionnaires that were distributed using the accidental sampling method. The questionnaire was divided into four sections. Section one captured the visitors’ sociodemographic characteristics; section two tackled visitors’ visitation characteristics; section three assessed visitors’ active participation in site activities; while section four assessed visitors’ behavioural intention due to active participation. This study made sure the questions were clear and understandable to tourists by using relevant literatures in previous value co-creation studies such as Mathis, Kim, Uysal, Sirgy and Prebensen (2016) and Peterson, Park and Seligman (2005) to construct variables in this study. Data was obtained across the sites from January to July, 2019.

The data obtained were analyzed using SPSS 21 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). Descriptive statistics such as tables (frequencies and percentages), means, and standard deviation were used to present the results, while inferential statistics such as Spearman correlation were used to test for relationship between satisfaction derived from value co-creation and behavioural intention of the visitors towards the sites. Logistic regression was used to obtain sociodemographic and travel determinants of active participation and T-test and ANOVA were used to determine sociodemographic differences in satisfaction with co-creation and overall satisfaction with the sites.

Findings, as shown in Table 1, revealed that the majority of the visitors were males (53.1%), were within age range of 26–35 years (36.7%), and were married (49.2%). Also, the highest percentage of the visitors had tertiary education (84.9%), were earning high income (above 400,000) (35.7%) and were working in the private sector (33.1%). A majority of the visitors were Nigerians (95.6%).

Table 2 shows that the highest percentage of the visitors (79.7%) were first-time visitors, the majority of the visitors made the trip with their family (38%), and they mostly visited for pleasure/holiday (90.1%). Also, 78.6% of the visitors organized the trip independently.

Table 3 reveals that the highest percentage of the visitors were active participants at site activities (80.5%). The visitors also claimed they enjoyed such activities (88.3%) while affirming active participation made the destination more interesting (97.7%). Also, the majority of the visitors were highly involved in the site activities (68.8%).

Furthermore, the visitors affirmed that they were satisfied with their active participation (mean=4.48); they also affirmed they are willing to pay more to be an active participant in site activities (mean=4.29) while claiming they would recommend the site and activities to others (mean=4.62) and revisit the site (mean=4.62). They also affirmed they were satisfied with the site activities as it gave room for their active participation (mean=4.39).

Table 5 reveals that there is a significant relationship between satisfaction with active participation and willingness to pay more to be involved in such activities (r=0.445, p<0.01), recommending the site to others (r=0.455, p<0.01), revisiting the site (r=0.453, p<0.01), and level of satisfaction with the site (r=0.269, p<0.01). All correlations show that as satisfaction with active participation is increasing, positive behavioural intention is increasing too.

Table 6 presents the result of the model explaining active participation. The likelihood test reveals that the logistic regression model is significant with Chi-square statistics of 34.415. This indicates that the sociodemographic and travel characteristics of the respondents were significantly related to their active participation in tourism activities. Additionally, the model predictions are correct at 85.5%, which indicates that the explanatory variables can be used to determine the dependent variable, that is, active participation. Frequency of visit (p<0.05), purpose of travel (p<0.01) and trip arrangement (p<0.05) are statistically significant with active participation. The final model fit indicated that 13.7% of variation in active participation can be explained by the logistic model.

T-test and ANOVA were computed to determine if there were significant differences in satisfaction with co-creation and overall satisfaction based on the sociodemographic variables. As shown in Table 7, there was significant difference in satisfaction with co-creation based on nationality (p<0.05), age (P<0.05), and education (p<0.05). There was also significant difference in overall satisfaction based on gender (p<0.01), nationality (p<0.01), residence (p<0.01), age (p<0.01), and marital status (p<0.01).

Findings from this study reveal that more males visit tourist sites than females, and they are youthful, employed, and with tertiary education. This shows that they are energetic enough to actively participate in site activities and are sufficiently economically stable to patronize the sites, as also opined by Ogunbodede (2012). A higher percentage of the visitors were first-time visitors to these sites, which is in line with Ma et al. (2018), who reported a majority of the respondents of Dinghushan National Nature Reserve as first-time visitors. These visitors travel primarily for pleasure/holiday with their family members, friends and spouses, as supported by Lončarić et al. (2017) in his findings that visitors mostly travelled with a partner, friends or family members. This has a tendency to promote strong family bonds, thereby reducing the rate of divorce and family chaos, as visitors do not like to travel alone. A majority of the visitors also organized their travel independently, as supported by Lončarić et al. (2017) in his findings that more than half of the respondents were independent travellers.

Active participation, which requires more effort and energy from visitors than passive participation, was investigated and the visitors claimed they were active participants at site activities and they enjoyed the activities, as has been stated by Carù and Cova (2007) that consumers can be actively or passively involved. In passive participation, destinations have dominion over the site experience, while active participation allows consumers to immerse themselves in an experience, taking responsibility for each step in the process. Participants further affirmed they were highly involved in site activities and that these activities made the sites more interesting. This is consistent with Buonincontri et al. (2017), that visitors acquire a more active role in deciding what to do during the vacation, interacting with tourism service providers at the destination, influencing other visitors, and choosing how to satisfy all aspects of their personality and all of their needs. This indicates that destinations no longer need to struggle to determine visitors’ satisfaction, as co-creation will enable each visitor to determine their own satisfaction through active involvement in the site experience. Neuhofer et al. (2012) also stated that visitors’ interactions, their active participation in the experience, and their attitudes on sharing the experience with others are identified as the antecedents of experience co-creation.

Furthermore, the visitors affirmed that active participation enhanced their destination experience. This could be a result of visitors determining the effort they put into each activity, thereby providing them a sense of belonging, as supported by Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004): that value is embodied in the individual experiences of consumers, defining experience co-creation as the joint creation of value by the destination and the consumers, enabling the consumers to co-construct service experiences to fit into their context. Ramaswamy and Gouillart (2010) also stated that destinations should adjust their role, and their main activities should become the involvement of customers in a purposeful dialog. The visitors were willing to pay more to be active participants in site activities, as supported by Howell et al. (2012), who found that consumers are more willing to buy experiential purchases than material purchases. Neuhofer et al. (2012) also stated that gains in effectiveness of tourist destinations are related to profits, market share, a major willingness to pay, and increases in revenue generation. The visitors also claimed they would recommend the site and activities to people while affirming they would revisit the site. Willingness to pay more, recommend, and revisit are clear indications that they enjoyed the destination experience and were satisfied with the site activities, as supported by Buonincontri et al. (2017), who asserted that there is a higher tendency that satisfied and excited visitors will revisit a destination and spread positive comments, positively influencing the destination's image and competitiveness. Grissemann and Stokburger-Sauer (2012) also individuated visitors’ satisfaction and expenditures, or the total money visitors spend for their tourism services, as a measure of destination success from a behavioural perspective.

This study investigated sociodemographic characteristics, travel characteristics and the effect of co-creation activities on behavioural intention and satisfaction of visitors and concluded that there were more males and youthful visitors at the sites who were first-time visitors and who travelled primarily with their family. Also, visitors are beginning to enjoy active participation more than passive participation, as active participation has improved their destination experience. Furthermore, value co-creation has had an influence on their behavioural intention, as they were willing to pay more, recommend, revisit the site, and were generally satisfied with the site due to their involvement in co-creation activity. Co-creation activities are therefore encouraged in tourist sites so that consumers have a feeling of being part of the determinants of their own satisfaction as they get involved in the experience creation process.