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PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies
ISBN 978-952- 61-2179- 6ISSN 1798-5749
Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies
PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
This dissertation examines customer involvement in experiential tourism service
development, by discussing customer involvement and consumer service experience in the NSD process of experiential services,
and examining the contribution and usefulness of diverse methods utilised new experiential service development. This dissertation takes
a case study approach and presents three different new tourism service development cases.
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HENNA KONU
CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT IN NEW EXPERIENTIAL TOURISM SERVICE DEVELOPMENT
Evidence in wellbeing and nature tourism contexts
Customer involvement in new
experiential tourism service
development
Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies No 123
HENNA KONU
Customer involvement in
new experiential tourism
service development
Evidence in wellbeing and nature tourism contexts
Publications of the University of Eastern Finland Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies
No 123
Itä-‐‑Suomen yliopisto Yhteiskuntatieteiden ja kauppatieteiden tiedekunta
Joensuu 2016
Grano Oy Joensuu, 2016
Vastaava toimittaja Prof. FT Kimmo Katajala Toimittaja FM Eija Fabritius
Myynti: Itä-‐‑Suomen yliopiston kirjasto
ISBN (nid): 978-‐‑952-‐‑61-‐‑2179-‐‑6 ISSN (nid): 1798-‐‑5749 ISSN-‐‑L: 1798-‐‑5749
ISBN (PDF): 978-‐‑952-‐‑61-‐‑2180-‐‑2 ISSN (PDF): 1798-‐‑5757
Author: Konu, Henna Customer involvement in new experiential tourism service development: Evidence in wellbeing and nature tourism contexts, 95 p. University of Eastern Finland Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, 2016 Publications of the University of Eastern Finland, Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies, no 123 ISBN (nid): 978-‐‑952-‐‑61-‐‑2179-‐‑6 ISSN (nid): 1798-‐‑5749 ISSN-‐‑L: 1798-‐‑5749 ISBN (PDF): 978-‐‑952-‐‑61-‐‑2180-‐‑2 ISSN (PDF): 1798-‐‑5757 Dissertation ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines customer involvement in experiential tourism service development, by discussing customer involvement and consumer service experience in the NSD process of experiential services, and examining the contribution and usefulness of diverse methods utilised new experiential service development. I chose tourism as the context of the study as it represents a highly experiential consumption context that has been previously overlooked. The theoretical basis of this thesis lies in service marketing and management, and the theoretical discussions of the thesis focus on experiential services, customer involvement and new service development. This study takes a case study approach and presents three different new service development cases, each of them presented in a journal article. In all three articles, diverse research methods have been used, namely the ethnographic approach, Delphi method, and longitudinal action research. This study argues that an experiential tourism service should appeal to hedonic and/or eudaimonic motivations which leads, through involvement, to internal and emotionally engaging experiences. Hence, service providers need to identify and recognise how they can facilitate this kind of experience. This means that it is essential to have deep customer insight regarding current and potential customers, and to gain this kind of insight diverse customer involvement methods should be used. This thesis gives its contribution by defining experiential services and by presenting practical examples of diverse NSD processes and methods used to involve customers in diverse phases of NSD. The findings of this study show that diverse expected benefits and challenges influenced the willingness of businesses and customers to be part of tourism NSD processes. Keywords: experiential service, customer involvement, consumer service experience, new service development, tourism
Tekijä: Konu, Henna Asiakkaan osallistaminen uuden elämyksellisen matkailupalvelun kehittämiseen: Esimerkkejä hyvinvointi-‐‑ ja luontomatkailukonteksteista, 95 s. Itä-‐‑Suomen yliopisto Yhteiskuntatieteiden ja kauppatieteiden tiedekunta, 2016 Publications of the University of Eastern Finland, Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies, no 123 ISBN (nid): 978-‐‑952-‐‑61-‐‑2179-‐‑6 ISSN (nid): 1798-‐‑5749 ISSN-‐‑L: 1798-‐‑5749 ISBN (PDF): 978-‐‑952-‐‑61-‐‑2180-‐‑2 ISSN (PDF): 1798-‐‑5757 Väitöskirja ABSTRAKTI
Kuluttamisesta on tullut yhä enemmän elämyskeskeistä ja ihmiset hakevat elämyksiä esimerkiksi kuluttamalla matkailupalveluita. Vaikka asiakkaan elämyksen katsotaan olevan matkailupalvelun ydin, elämyksellisten matkailupalveluiden kehittämistä asiakkaita osallistamalla on tutkittu yllättävän vähän. Tämä väitöskirja täyttää tätä tutkimusaukkoa keskustelemalla asiakkaan osallistamisesta uusien palveluiden kehittämiseen ja asiakkaan palvelu-‐‑kokemuksesta uuden elämyspalvelutuotteen kehittämisprosessissa. Lisäksi väitöskirja käsittelee erilaisia asiakkaan osallistamismenetelmiä ja tutkii niiden hyödynnettävyyttä uusien elämyspalveluiden kehittämisessä. Teoreettisesti tutkimus sijoittuu palveluiden markkinoinnin ja johtamisen kirjallisuuteen. Keskeisiä teoreettisia teemoja ovat elämyspalvelut, asiakkaan osallistaminen ja uuden palvelun kehitys. Väitöskirjan lähestymistapana on tapaustutkimus. Työ esittelee kolme eri esimerkkiä uuden palvelun kehittämisestä. Kukin esimerkkitapaus on julkaistu omana tieteellisenä artikkelina. Artikkeleissa on hyödynnetty eri tutkimusmenetelmiä ja/tai lähestymistapoja, eli etnografiaa, Delfoi-‐‑menetelmää ja pitkittäistä toimintatutkimusta. Tämän tutkimuksen tulosten keskeinen väite on, että elämyksellisten matkailupalveluiden tulisi vedota asiakkaiden hedonistisiin ja/tai eudaimonisiin motiiveihin, mikä osallistumisen kautta johtaa asiakkaan sisäisesti koettuun ja tunteisiin vetoavaan elämykseen. Täten palvelun tarjoajien tulee tunnistaa, miten he kykenevät tarjoamaan puitteet kyseisille elämyksille. On ensisijaisen tärkeää, että palvelun tarjoajilla on syvällistä asiakasymmärrystä nykyisistä ja potentiaalisista asiakkaista. Tällaista ymmärrystä saadaan hyödyntämällä erilaisia, erityisesti laadullisia, asiakkaan osallistamisen menetelmiä. Asiasanat: elämyspalvelu, asiakkaan osallistaminen, asiakaskokemus, elämys, matkailu, uuden palvelun kehittäminen
Acknowledgements
It is hard to believe that I am writing this. This actually means that my long PhD process is finally coming to an end. It has been a joke between my friends and I that my hobby has been to write different theses and dissertations. I hope this will be the last one – at least for now. Working with this dissertation has been a long and fruitful process and during this time I have met so many people who have inspired and helped me with encouraging words, intensive discussions, listening to me thinking out loud and giving concrete feedback on my texts.
First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisor professor Raija Komppula for her support, commitment, guidance and friendship. We have spent some beautiful summer days at her summer cottage where she read my research papers and commented on them while sunbathing on the pier. She has been an excellent listener and encouraged me when I felt desperate with the whole thing. I also want to thank professor Antti Honkanen for his valuable comments on my dissertation.
I want to express my sincere gratitude to professor Bo Edvardsson and professor Ulla Hakala for reviewing the first draft of my work. Their supportive and constructive comments helped me to develop my work into its final form.
I also want to thank my colleagues and friends at the University of Eastern Finland, especially at the Centre for Tourism Studies. It has been a pleasure to work with you. My thanks also go to my colleagues and fellow students at the Business School and Finnish University Network for Tourism Studies.
My work has been supported directly and indirectly by diverse tourism research and development projects. I was privileged to work on the project Development of eTourism Business and Research Competence at the Centre for Tourism
Studies funded by the Regional Council of South-‐‑Savo – European Union'ʹs European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and Forest Wellbeing Tourism project funded by ERDF, The Regional Council of North Karelia, Municipality of Ilomantsi, Joensuu University Foundation, Joensuu Regional Development Company Ltd (Josek), Karelia Expert Tourist Service Ltd, Foundation for Advancement of Karelian Culture, and Centre for Training and Development Aducate. These projects enabled me to collect data for two of my case studies in this thesis.
This dissertation has also been supported by the Foundation for Economic Education and Foundation supporting business education in Joensuu (Joensuun kauppaopetuksen tukisäätiö). Thanks to their financial support, I was able to take study leave to focus on my dissertation and participate in interesting and useful tourism and service management conferences.
I am grateful that I have been able to discuss my work with numerous tourism and service professionals. They have given me a deeper insight into the topic as well as new perspectives.
I’m deeply grateful to my friends and relatives. This dissertation would not be finished without the help and assistance of my parents, Tarja and Heikki, and my parents-‐‑in-‐‑law, Liisa and Jarmo, of managing everyday-‐‑life with two children. I also want to thank them for the encouragement and support during the whole process. Last but not the least I thank my husband, Ville, who supported me during the process even though managing our time between work, children and the dissertation has been quite challenging. I also thank my children, Veeti and especially Alisa, who has been very understanding when “mom needed to spend time writing a book”. Now I can tell her, it is finished! Onttola, June 2016 Henna Konu
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 13
1.1 Motivation for this study ................................................................................... 13
1.2 Justification of the study .................................................................................... 16
1.3 Purpose of the study ........................................................................................... 18
1.4 Key concepts of the study .................................................................................. 21
1.5 Positioning of the study ..................................................................................... 22
1.6 Outline of the study ............................................................................................ 24
2 CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT IN EXPERIENTIAL SERVICE DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................. 25
2.1 Consumer service experience ............................................................................ 25 2.1.1 Introduction of the concept of experience ................................................ 25 2.1.2 Diverse concepts of ‘experience’ in services management .................... 27 2.1.3 Conceptualising the consumer service experience ................................. 32
2.2 Service as an offering .......................................................................................... 33 2.2.1 Types of services .......................................................................................... 33 2.2.2 Earlier research on experiential services .................................................. 36 2.2.3 A tourism product as an experiential service .......................................... 41
2.3 Customer involvement in new service development .................................... 43 2.3.1 Customer involvement in the development of offerings ....................... 43 2.3.2 New service development .......................................................................... 45 2.3.3 Benefits and challenges of customer involvement in NSD .................... 47
2.4 Methods of customer involvement in new service development ................ 49
3 RESEARCH STRATEGY ............................................................................. 52
3.1 Scientific approach and the research strategy ................................................. 52
3.2 Data collection and methods of analysis ......................................................... 54 3.2.1 Ethnographic approach .............................................................................. 54 3.2.2 Delphi method ............................................................................................. 55 3.2.3 Longitudinal action research ..................................................................... 58
4 RESEARCH FINDINGS REVIEWED AND SUPPLEMENTED ......... 60
4.1 Article 1: Developing a forest-‐‑based wellbeing tourism product with customers – an ethnographic approach ................................................................. 60
4.2 Article 2: Developing nature-‐‑based tourism products with customers by utilizing the Delphi method .................................................................................... 62
4.3 Article 3: Customer involvement in a new service development process: Developing the “Feelgood in Lapland” tourism offering ................................... 64
4.4 Summary of the findings ................................................................................... 66 4.4.1 Experiential aspect in developing experiential tourism services ......... 66 4.4.2 Customer involvement methods used ..................................................... 67 4.4.3 Issues influencing utilisation of customer involvement in tourism NSD ................................................................................................................................. 70
5 CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION ..................................................... 72
5.1 Theoretical contribution ..................................................................................... 72
5.2 Managerial contribution .................................................................................... 74
5.3 Evaluation of the study and future research ................................................... 76
REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 79
ARTICLES ......................................................................................................... 95
TABLES
Table 1: Objectives of the research papers ................................................................. 20 Table 2: Key concepts of the study .............................................................................. 21 Table 3: Characteristics of an experience ................................................................... 31 Table 4: Characteristics of ‘experiential’ .................................................................... 37 Table 5: Experience as a service ................................................................................... 38 Table 6: Summary of the customer involvement methods used ............................ 68 Table 7: Identified challenges of customer involvement ......................................... 76 FIGURES Figure 1: Positioning of the study ............................................................................... 24 Figure 2: Diverse experience concepts ....................................................................... 28 Figure 3: Developing experiential tourism services – framework for the empirical study .............................................................................................................. 51 Figure 4: The case study approach in this thesis ....................................................... 53 Figure 5: Consumer and business perspectives of an experiential service ........... 72
1 Introduction
“Developing a new customer experience involves risk, and research techniques – especially quantitative techniques – may be incapable of eliciting a response from potential customers where the proposed experience is hypothetical, and devoid of the emotional and situational context in which it will be encountered.” (Palmer, 2010, p. 204)
1.1 MOTIVATION FOR THIS STUDY
What do we want and what do we get when we buy a service? Is it interaction with another person? Is it the outcome from the service? Is it the overall experience that constitutes several things, such as the facilities or the environment where the service takes place? What kind of experiences customers expect from different services? How can service providers meet our expectations for the service experience? How these experiences can be developed? These are just a few of the questions that have motivated this study together with the fact that services have a prominent role in all the world’s most advanced economies and it is said that many of them have more than 70% of their gross domestic product generated by services (Ostrom, Bitner, Brown, Burkhard, Goul, Smith-‐‑Daniels, Demirkan and Rabinovich, 2010).
The discussion and focus around services changed when the perspectives of service-‐‑dominant logic (SDL) (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) and service logic (SL) (Grönroos, 2006; 2008; 2011) emerged emphasising customer perspective, interaction between a customer and suppliers, and regarding customers as co-‐‑creators of value (Payne, Storbacka and Frow, 2008; Payne, Storbacka, Frow and Knox, 2009; Vargo and Lusch, 2006). In addition, in the past few decades services researchers and managers have examined (service) experience as a central phenomenon (Jaakkola, Helkkula and Aarikka-‐‑Stenroos, 2015; McColl-‐‑Kennedy, Cheung and Ferrier, 2015). Several authors argue that we are living in an experience economy and people are seeking more and more experiences in their lives (Mascarenhas, Kesavan and Bernacchi, 2006; Pine and Gilmore, 1998; 1999; Quan and Wang, 2004).
However, experiences are not a new research topic, as experiences have been discussed and studied in different disciplines since the 1960s. Several authors have contended that customer experience depends on the characteristics of a product or service (e.g. Gentile, Spiller and Noci, 2007). It is also said that the value that a customer experiences derives from comparing one thing with
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another and depends on the context of consumption (Holbrook, 2006). Hence it can be assumed that a consumer’s experience of an experiential service is different from the experience of a consumer when buying tangible goods.
The experiential aspects of consumption were already emphasised at the beginning of the 1980s by Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) when they discussed consumer fantasies, feelings and fun, as well as hedonic consumption (see also Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982). Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) claimed that the experiential perspective of consumption is characterised by subjectivity and explores diverse symbolic meanings. They stated that the symbolic role of particular sectors, such as the arts, entertainment and leisure activities, is richer and more prominent than that of some other products. Now, such products and services are seen to be a part of the experience industry, which includes services from tourism, culture and entertainment, as well as sport and leisure (Voss and Zomerdijk, 2007).
In services marketing and management literature from the past 20 years the number of articles that focus on experiences has increased. However, the marketing research on experience is still rather underdeveloped (Schmitt and Zarantonello, 2013). Some papers have also referred to experiential services (Agrusa, Maples, Kitterlin and Tanner, 2007; Patterson and Smith, 2003) but rarely are there definitions of what is meant by the concept. A few researchers have also defined experiential services in their studies (e.g. Voss and Zomerdijk, 2007; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011), but most of the studies of experiential services have defined them just by referring to some particular service (e.g. Albers-‐‑Miller and Stafford, 1999; Dabholcar and Walls, 1999; Duman and Mattila, 2005; Patterson and Smith, 2003). For instance, according to Williams (2006) products of the hospitality and tourism industry are always experiential.
The tourism service differs from many other services, for example, by the longer duration of the service experience, as tourism service overall is made up of several service modules and encounters (Batat and Frochot, 2014; Konu, 2015a). Surprisingly, even if the service management literature acknowledges the experiential aspect of services, and tourism and hospitality services are referred to as examples of experiential services, tourism has rarely been the object of experiential marketing studies in the mainstream marketing field (Batat and Frochot, 2014).
Shaw, Bailey and Williams (2011) emphasise the fact that the tourism sector is increasingly based around customer service experience and hence consumers and suppliers interact more closely together at all stages of their relationship. SDL and SL emphasise customer interaction with suppliers during service experience co-‐‑creation and highlight the context-‐‑specific and personal nature of experience (Jaakkola et al., 2015; Payne et al., 2009). Co-‐‑creation may refer to customer participation in the process of creating offering (referred also as co-‐‑production), or to customer participation in the value creation process (Lusch et al., 2007; Mustak et al., 2013). Co-‐‑creation of offering has been seen as a new way
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to create value, both for customers and for businesses, as the co-‐‑creation enables customers to co-‐‑construct the service to suit their purposes and needs (Miettinen, 2009; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a). Thus, it is important to recognise the two distinct meanings of co-‐‑creation, but also note that they are intertwined. In this study, the term co-‐‑creation refers to customer involvement in the offering creation process and to the associated value outcomes for the parties involved (Mustak et al., 2013). The importance of customer involvement in (new) service development (NSD) through co-‐‑creation is increasingly recognised by academics and practitioners (Alam, 2002; Bendapudi and Leone, 2003; Chan, Yim and Lam, 2010; Cheng, Chen and Hun, 2012; Edvardsson, Kristensson, Magnusson and Sundström, 2012; Fang, Palmatier and Evans, 2008; Hjalager and Nordin, 2011; Nicolajsen and Scupola, 2011; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a; 2004b; Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012; Vargo and Lusch, 2006; Verleye, 2015). It has also been shown that, in addition to the co-‐‑creation process, the situation and the context influence the outcome and customer experiences of co-‐‑creation (Verleye, 2015).
It is estimated that the growth of tourism and tourism activities increases in the long run (UWNTO 2015) and it has been argued and the trends have shown that the demand of nature-‐‑based and wellbeing tourism have increased even faster (Hall and Boyd 2005; Jänkälä, 2014). For instance, the demand for wellbeing tourism and wellbeing tourism services has increased as many people feel stressed because of the work-‐‑obsessed, time-‐‑pressured, materialistic and over-‐‑individualistic societies, and they are looking balance in their lives (Laing and Weiler, 2008; Sheldon and Bushell, 2009; Smith and Puzckó, 2009). The changes in demographic and lifestyle have also increased the demand (García-‐‑Altés, 2005) and the growing demand has also been noted in diverse wellbeing tourism sub-‐‑sectors such as spa tourism (ISPA, 2013).
VisitFinland (2013) has chosen four main development areas in Finnish tourism, namely wellbeing, winter, summer and culture. All the development areas include a strong connection to nature and nature activities, and for instance ‘summer’ includes nature activities that take place in natural settings such as in forests and lakes (VisitFinland, 2013). The development guidelines include development focus areas (e.g. combining nature and culture) (VisitFinland, 2013) but there is still need to convert the resources and possibilities into well targeted tourism services. Further information is also required to support the development activities including e.g. product and service development, and marketing communication (Tuohino, 2012).
Like in other parts of the world, most Finnish tourism businesses are micro, small or medium sized businesses that are characterised by e.g. part-‐‑time tourism entrepreneurship and limited entrepreneurial skills (Komppula, 2000). Limited financial and other resources may also influence their willingness and ability to develop their business in long-‐‑term (Komppula, 2000), including also service development processes. On the other hand, to guarantee competitiveness
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in the market, businesses face increasing pressure to innovate, identify new market niches and tackle the seasonality problems (Cracolici and Nijkamp, 2009; Ernst & Young, 2013). Customer involvement in service development has seen to offer diverse benefits to businesses, such as customer attachment and acceptance of new services (e.g. Alam, 2006; Magnusson, Matthing and Kristensson, 2003; von Hippel, 2001) and hence improving the success of new services (Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012). Involving customers by using suitable approaches may help businesses to allocate their development resources more efficiently and hence benefit tourism businesses in their NSD processes.
The above-‐‑mentioned issues influenced and motivated this dissertation to examine the development practices of experiential (tourism) services. The need for this study is presented in more detail in the following chapter. 1.2 JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY The growing importance of the service sector has brought a need for theories and approaches that focus specifically on services and acknowledges their special characteristics. Even though research on services has increased after the emergence of the perspectives of service-‐‑dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) and service logic (Grönroos, 2006; 2008; 2011), there are still numerous important research topics in the services management field. Several gaps identified in the literature give also justification for this study:
-‐‑ There is a need for further information supporting the simulation of service innovation, e.g. designing emergent and planned processes for service innovation, identifying and managing customers’ roles in service innovation processes, and generating and managing ideas for service innovation (Ostrom et al. 2010).
-‐‑ There is a lack of studies that focus on co-‐‑creation of the service experience or service experience co-‐‑creation including topics such as defining the customers’ roles and developing methods to motivate customer contributions, and enhancing customer or service collaboration by using technology (Jaakkola et al.,2015; Ostrom et al. 2010).
-‐‑ There is a need for research on the process by which specific cues in experiential touchpoints create specific consumer experiences, and the process by which experiences impact consumer behaviour (Schmitt and Zarantonello, 2013).
The nature and characteristics of different services need to be considered when services are developed. There is a difference when the development activities focus on developing services that are connected to physical products (e.g. repair services of cars) compared to services that are directed at people. In addition,
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there are also different kinds of people processing services ranging from health care services to experiential services such as tourism services. It can be argued that all services cannot be developed in a similar way.
Customers have a central role in services and co-‐‑creating service experience. Customer involvement is one central issue in developing new services (Verleye, 2015). Many of the customer involvement studies are made in the context of new product development and there are only a limited number of studies that focus on service development. In addition, even if customer involvement has been regarded as being important for successful product and service development (Alam, 2006; Magnusson et al., 2003), there has only been a limited amount of empirical studies related to the topic, e.g. concerning effectiveness and outcomes (Campbell and Cooper, 1999), how customer involvement enhances and contributes to NSD processes (Sigala, 2012b), and how to engage customers with NSD (Kristensson, Matthing and Johansson, 2008).
Many of the studies on customer involvement in NSD are made in a business-‐‑to-‐‑business context and focus on developing financial and technological services (Alam and Perry, 2002; Alam, 2002; Alam, 2006; Matthing, Sanden and Edvardsson, 2004). However, over the last few years some studies have also focused on examining customer involvement in the settings of experiential industries such as tourism and hospitality (Komppula and Lassila, 2014; Konu, 2015b; Sigala, 2012b; Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012). It is also argued that user-‐‑driven innovation (in this study a new service is seen as one form of innovation) and involving customers in innovation processes suits well to the tourism industry where the consumer-‐‑producer interaction is closer than in many other sectors (Hjalager, 2010). There has also been a call for studies that focus on user-‐‑driven innovation practices and methods in tourism (Hjalager and Nordin, 2011).
As mentioned before, it is emphasised that the services of the hospitality and tourism industry (e.g. restaurants, theme parks, and tourist destinations) are experiential (Williams, 2006). Experiential services do not solely focus on the functional benefits resulting from the products or services delivered (Voss and Zomerdijk, 2007; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011) but more on the experiential value a consumer obtains from the consumer service experience. It is surprising that experience marketing literature has overlooked the tourism as consumption context even though it is one of the most highly experiential contexts in existence (Batat and Frochot, 2014). In addition, despite the fact that the core of a tourism service is the experience of the consumer, it is interesting to see how limited the research into how customers are involved in tourism products and services development is at present (Prebensen, Vittersø and Dahl, 2013). In addition to the above mentioned gaps, there are also other research challenges identified in the literature:
-‐‑ “…few studies have actually explored interaction from the customers’ viewpoint, which is tourist participation as a resource enhancing value
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for the tourist and the firms in the service encounter.” (Prebensen, 2014, p. 29).
-‐‑ There is a need to systematically identify and categorise different research methodologies and approaches that are or should be used to examine the consumer/tourist experience (Ritchie and Hudson, 2009).
-‐‑ “Future research efforts should continue to examine the tourists’ experience through different research methods that could enhance the contribution of the tourists in defining the concept of experience and the attributes that transform occurrences into experiences.” (Volo, 2009, p. 123).
Development of new products and brand extensions should be driven by the creation of holistic experiences (Schmitt, 1999) especially in industries offering experiential services, e.g. tourism and hospitality. Despite the extensive discussion of diverse experience concepts in service management literature, a lack of studies that examine specifically experiential services, especially in relation to the processes how the prerequisites and settings of the service are developed and designed can be identified. It can be argued that developing experiential services, such as tourism services, differs from developing some other kinds of services. It is also argued that the development of experiential services requires an emphatic and ethnographic approach, and tools that focus on emotional and experiential aspects of the service delivery should be used (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011).
Authors (Edvardsson et al., 2012; Kristensson, Gustafsson and Archer, 2004; Sigala, 2012b) have emphasised the importance of involving customers throughout the NSD process, however most of the recent customer involvement studies focus mainly on one phase of the NSD process. Hence, there is a lack of studies examining customer involvement throughout and/or in several phases of NSD. Some studies have outlined methods suitable for acquiring customer information (e.g. Alam, 2002; Lagrosen, 2005; von Hippel, 1986), from which some methods are seen to suit for particular phases of the development process and others being appropriate for the gathering of customer information throughout the entire process (von Koskull and Fougére, 2011). Nevertheless, Nijssen and Lieshout (1995, cited in von Koskull and Fougére, 2011) bring forth that there is little information available concerning the extent and the way in which customers are involved in real cases of service development praxis. This applies also to the tourism and hospitality context.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
As the previous chapter shows, there are several research gaps related to involving consumers in experiential service development processes. The
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purpose of the thesis is to increase understanding about customer involvement in new experiential tourism service development. To examine these issues, this study first aims to further conceptualise an experiential service. The second aim of the study is to contribute to service marketing and management literature by discussing customer involvement and consumer service experience in the NSD process of experiential services, and examining the contribution and usefulness of diverse methods utilised in new experiential service development. To explore these issues in more detail, the following sub-‐‑questions are posed:
1. How is the experiential aspect of tourism services considered in the new service development processes? 2. How do different consumer involvement methods contribute to new service development in the experiential service context? 3. What influences the utilisation of customer involvement in an NSD in the tourism industry?
The context of the study – wellbeing and nature-‐‑based tourism – was chosen as it represents one of the most highly experiential consumption contexts that have previously been overlooked (Batat and Frochot, 2014).
The theoretical framework of this study discusses what the issues that need to be considered are when experiential services are developed. To fulfil the first aim of the thesis, the literature review discusses the concepts of experience and highlights the special characteristics of experiential service. The concept of an experiential service is defined after the conceptual discussion. The theoretical part of the thesis answers together with the research articles to the research questions. Table 1 indicates how articles included in this study help to answer the questions.
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Tabl
e 1:
Obj
ectiv
es o
f the
rese
arch
pap
ers
Art
icle
R
esea
rch
ob
ject
ives
S
ub
-qu
esti
on
s ex
amin
ed i
n t
he
arti
cles
R
esea
rch
th
emes
Art
icle
I
Exam
ines
the
sui
tabi
lity
of a
n et
hnog
raph
ic
appr
oach
in e
xter
nal t
estin
g ph
ase
of n
ew
serv
ice
deve
lopm
ent
proc
ess.
The
usa
bilit
y an
d us
eful
ness
of
an e
thno
grap
hic
appr
oach
in
tou
rism
NSD
are
exa
min
ed b
y di
scus
sing
an
d de
scri
bing
wha
t ki
nd o
f in
form
atio
n is
ga
ined
thr
ough
the
pro
cess
, an
d w
hat
kind
s of
cha
lleng
es t
he a
ppro
ach
has.
1.H
ow is
the
exp
erie
ntia
l asp
ect
ofto
uris
m s
ervi
ces
cons
ider
ed in
the
new
serv
ice
deve
lopm
ent
proc
esse
s?2.
How
do
diff
eren
t co
nsum
erin
volv
emen
t m
etho
ds c
ontr
ibut
e to
new
serv
ice
deve
lopm
ent
in t
he e
xper
ient
ial
serv
ice
cont
ext?
Cus
tom
er in
volv
emen
t m
etho
ds,
NSD
pr
oces
s, c
hara
cter
istic
s of
exp
erie
ntia
l to
uris
m s
ervi
ce,
cons
umer
ser
vice
ex
peri
ence
Art
icle
II
Exam
ines
the
sui
tabi
lity
of t
he D
elph
i met
hod
in n
ew s
ervi
ce d
evel
opm
ent.
The
sui
tabi
lity
and
oppo
rtun
ities
pro
vide
d by
the
Del
phi
met
hod
in t
he t
ouri
sm s
ecto
r ar
e as
sess
ed b
y ex
amin
ing
the
appl
icab
ility
of
the
met
hod
in
data
col
lect
ion
and
cust
omer
invo
lvem
ent
for
diff
eren
t pu
rpos
es in
NSD
. In
add
ition
, em
phas
is is
pla
ced
on e
valu
atin
g w
hat
kind
of
info
rmat
ion
is g
aine
d th
roug
h th
e pr
oces
s.
1.H
ow is
the
exp
erie
ntia
l asp
ect
ofto
uris
m s
ervi
ces
cons
ider
ed in
the
new
serv
ice
deve
lopm
ent
proc
esse
s?2.
How
do
diff
eren
t co
nsum
erin
volv
emen
t m
etho
ds c
ontr
ibut
e to
new
serv
ice
deve
lopm
ent
in t
he e
xper
ient
ial
serv
ice
cont
ext?
A c
usto
mer
’s a
nd f
irm
’s a
ctiv
ities
and
re
sour
ces,
con
sum
er s
ervi
ce
expe
rien
ce
Art
icle
III
Ex
amin
es t
he w
illin
gnes
s an
d ab
ility
of
a co
mpa
ny t
o ut
ilise
cus
tom
er in
volv
emen
t,
bene
fits
driv
en f
rom
cus
tom
er in
volv
emen
t an
d w
illin
gnes
s of
cus
tom
ers
to p
artic
ipat
e in
ne
w s
ervi
ce d
evel
opm
ent
(NSD
) in
diff
eren
t st
ages
of
the
proc
ess.
2.H
ow d
o di
ffer
ent
cons
umer
invo
lvem
ent
met
hods
con
trib
ute
to n
ewse
rvic
e de
velo
pmen
t in
the
exp
erie
ntia
lse
rvic
e co
ntex
t?3.
Wha
t in
fluen
ces
the
utili
satio
n of
cust
omer
invo
lvem
ent
in a
n N
SD
in t
heto
uris
m in
dust
ry?
Cus
tom
er in
volv
emen
t m
etho
ds,
phas
es o
f N
SD
pro
cess
, fir
m’s
ac
tiviti
es a
nd r
esou
rces
, be
nefit
s an
d ch
alle
nges
of
NSD
21
1.4 KEY CONCEPTS OF THE STUDY The key concepts of this study are briefly defined in Table 2. A more detailed discussion of the main issues and concepts is presented in the theory section. Table 2: Key concepts of the study Concept Definition
Service as a product
“Services are economic activities that create value and
provide benefits for customers at specific times and places,
as a result of bringing about a desired change in – or on
behalf of – the recipient of the service” (Lovelock et al.
1999).
Consumer service
experience
A consumer service experience is a subjective experience
of an individual that includes the personal experience of
the service process (including the interaction between a
consumer and/or a service provider, the environment, etc.)
that leads to the experience of the outcome from the
service, which may be experiential or not. (own definition,
see chapter 2.1.3)
Experiential service
An experiential service is an economic activity in which a
service provider provides prerequisites that enable a
consumer, through involvement, to experience something
that is internal and emotionally engaging or affective and
appeals to consumer’s hedonic and/or eudaimonic
motivations, leading to experiential value. (own definition,
see chapter 2.2.2)
Co-creation Co-creation refers to customer involvement in the offering
creation process and to the associated value outcomes for
the parties involved (Mustak et al., 2013; Vargo and Lusch,
2004).
Customer involvement
Customer involvement in service innovations is an
interactive process including collaboration between current
and/or potential customers and the service provider at the
process of service development based on identified latent
needs of customers (Matthing et al., 2004).
New service development
New service development is a process that includes
different iterative development phases aiming to develop a
new service offering (Alam, 2006; Johnson et al., 2000;
Menor et al., 2002).
22
Wellbeing tourism
“Wellbeing tourism includes trips taken by people who
temporarily travel outside their normal living environment
for reasons of personal wellbeing, enhancing and
promoting health, and self-indulgence. The motivations
and expected services include wellbeing tourism
element(s): wellness, promoting health, sports and fitness,
adventure, and transformation or spirituality. Wellbeing
tourism experiences emerge in the process of interaction
between a consumer, wellbeing services and service
providers, and the destination attributes such as natural
and wellness resources and infrastructure.” (Konu, 2014)
Nature-based tourism “Nature-based tourism includes tourism in natural settings
(e.g. adventure tourism), tourism that focuses on specific
elements of the natural environment (e.g. safari and
wildlife tourism, nature tourism, marine tourism), and
tourism that is developed in order to conserve or protect
natural areas (e.g. ecotourism, national parks)” (Hall and
Boyd, 2005).
Tourism product A tourism product is a customer’s subjective experience,
that has a certain price, includes a set of tangible and
intangible elements (Carmichael, 2005), and that develops
in a process where customers utilise services by
participating himself/herself to the creation process of the
product (Komppula and Boxberg, 2002). 1.5 POSITIONING OF THE STUDY Current marketing theories recognise the customer as the focal point of marketing. The perspectives – SDL, SL and customer-‐‑dominant logic – in services marketing and management have shifted the focus towards a service perspective on marketing (Grönroos and Voima, 2013; Vargo and Lusch, 2004), and the role of a customer, interactions and customer experiences in product and service design, production and consumption has been emphasised (Grönroos, 2006; 2008; 2011; Payne et al., 2009; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a; 2004b; Vargo and Lusch, 2004). The interaction is usually described as a dialog between customers and service providers, and hence the traditional top down approach is replaced with dialogues between customers and suppliers as equal partners (Vargo and Lusch, 2004; 2006; Payne et al. 2009). However, this scope has been expanded and it is argued by service scholars (McColl-‐‑Kennedy, Gustafsson, Jaakkola, Klaus, Radnor, Perks and Friman, 2015; Jaakkola et al.,
23
2015) that there is a need to move away from the dyadic firm-‐‑customer relationship and recognise also other actors as well as looking beyond the firm’s actions and interactions that are solely focused on service encounters. Recent studies have aimed to achieve deeper understanding about the service experience concept by combining diverse fields offering varying perspectives on service experience, namely SDL, SL, consumer culture theory, and service innovation and design (Akaka, Vargo and Schau, 2015; Jaakkola et al., 2015).
The importance of customer involvement in new service development through co-‐‑creation is increasingly recognised by researchers and managers (Mustak, Jaakkola and Halinen, 2013; Payne et al., 2008). The literature discusses the co-‐‑creation of products and services (also referred as co-‐‑production in Lusch et al., 2007) as a new way to create value, both for customers and for businesses, as the co-‐‑creation enables customers to co-‐‑construct the service to suit their purposes and needs (Miettinen, 2009; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a). Customer involvement in the creation of offerings is seen to provide value for both customers and firms (Mustak et al., 2013). However, these studies focus mainly on examining value co-‐‑creation during service encounters and hence customer involvement in developing new services has received less attention.
Studies have also showed that especially in the high-‐‑involvement service contexts, such as tourism and hospitality, customer involvement leads to higher customer satisfaction (Bloemer and Ruyter, 1999). As mentioned in previous sections, tourism represents a highly experiential context of services. The special characteristics of experiential services influence the issues that need to be considered when these kinds of services are developed. It is also noted that traditional research methods are not sufficient to study experiential services and consumer service experiences, which call for phenomenological methods, as well as an emphatic and ethnographic approach to study and develop consumer service experiences and experiential services (Helkkula et al., 2012; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011).
This study positions itself in the field of services marketing and management and to the discussions of experiential services, customer involvement and new service development (Figure 1). The context of the study is experiential tourism services. The articles comprising this dissertation examine the development of new experiential tourism service offerings in order to better understand the phenomenon and emergence of consumer service experience.
This study contributes to the discussion of new service development and customer involvement by providing insight to the less studied field of experiential services. It can be argued that the nature and characteristics of the experiential services influence the practices (e.g. customer involvement methods) used in development processes.
24
Figure 1: Positioning of the study
1.6 OUTLINE OF THE STUDY
This doctoral thesis is an article-‐‑based dissertation and it comprises the theory section and three articles that are reprinted in the latter part of the work. After the introduction, the thesis is divided into four parts. The introduction demonstrates the relevance of the study. The second section focuses on the theoretical background of the work and introduces the framework of the empirical study. The theory section begins with an overview of the experience concepts used in service management and marketing, and a discussion of their interrelations. Starting with the concept of experience and going through several experience concepts, the discussion eventually specifies the consumer service experience. Second, the experiential service is defined and in particular tourism services as experiential services are discussed. The section also discusses what needs to be considered in experiential service development and how consumers can be and should be involved to the process.
In the third section, the research strategy of this study is introduced in more detail including the description of the methodological approach chosen, and the data and methods used in empirical parts of the articles are described. In the fourth section, the main results of the three articles are reviewed and supplemented. The fifth part includes the conclusion and discussion of the central themes of the study.
Experiential services
Customer involvement
New service development FOCUS OF
THIS STUDY
25
2 Customer involvement in experiential service
development
2.1 CONSUMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE 2.1.1 Introduction of the concept of experience In English the word experience can refer to two different aspects; on the one hand it refers to a process or moment-‐‑by-‐‑moment living through an event (in German Erlebnis), and on the other hand it refers to an experience that is evaluated or the knowledge gained after an event (in German Erfahrung) (e.g. Highmore, 2002; Komppula and Gartner, 2013; Palmer, 2010). Hence, the English language is challenging in this respect as the word experience can be both a noun and a verb with different meanings (Palmer, 2010; Tynan and McKechnie, 2009). This has also caused difficulties when researchers attempt to define the concept of experience. Referring to this, Palmer (2010, p. 197) states that “[t]he ambiguity for marketers is that on the one hand, experience is a learned outcome that is associated with predictable behaviours, whereas on the other it has come to be associated with processes whose novelty may result in unpredictable response by consumers”. The difficulty of defining the concept of experience has been noted and deliberated on by several researchers (e.g. Carú and Cova, 2003; Chhetri, Arrowsmith and Jackson, 2004; Gupta and Vajic, 2000; Knutson and Beck, 2003; Scott, Laws and Boksberger, 2009; Tynan and McKechnie, 2009). For instance, Knutson and Beck (2003) state that experience as a concept is seen to be difficult to define and measure because it has multiple elements and is individualised in nature. The concept of experience has also been defined in different frames connected to organisational perspectives, individualistic perspectives, psychological perspectives and social perspectives (Jennings et al., 2009).
Discussions about experiences started in different disciplines as early as the 1960s. To give a few examples, Maslow (1964) discussed peak experience, Csikszentmihalyi (1975) flow, and Abrahams (1986) extraordinary experience. The experiences are often approached by using a dichotomy between ordinary and extraordinary experiences (Abrahams, 1986), mere experience and an experience (Turner, 1986), mundane and extraordinary or memorable
26
experiences (Schmitt, 1999). This is mostly the case in the social sciences, however, some marketing scholars have also adopted and discussed this approach (e.g. Schmitt, 1999; and later e.g. Carú and Cova, 2003; Walls, Okumus, Wang and Kwun, 2011). In relation to the sociology of consumption, Edgell, Hetherington and Warde (1997, cited by Carú and Cova, 2003, p. 276) emphasise four typologies of ‘consumption experience’: family experiences (arising from family ties), friendship experiences (arising from interactive relations within a community), citizenship experiences (connected to relations with the state), and consumer experiences (linked to exchanges with the market). Hence, not all the consumption experiences are related to the market and thus are not always market consumption experiences or consumer experiences (Carú and Cova, 2003).
Carú and Cova (2003) propose two diverse definitions of the word experience: one that is used habitually in the social sciences and the other in marketing. They say that experience (in the social sciences) “is defined as a subjective episode in the construction/transformation of the individual, with, however, an emphasis on the emotions and senses lived during the immersion at the expense of the cognitive dimension” (ibid, p. 273). The experience in marketing has a more objective meaning and confirms “the idea that the result may (must?) be something extremely significant and unforgettable for the consumer immersed into the experience” (ibid, p. 273). Two common aspects also identified by Knutson and Beck (2003) can be seen from the definitions above. First, experiences are dependent on a person as they require the involvement of an individual. Second, experiences are individualised as they are internal in nature. These aspects apply to definitions that are used in both social sciences and in marketing.
In marketing and management literature, studies of hedonic consumption experiences emerged at the beginning of the 1980s (e.g. Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982). From the marketing perspective, studies that focus on experience as a noun usually define it as an outcome that is created or designed. For instance, Pine and Gilmore (1998, p. 98) state that “[a]n experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event”. They also emphasise that a firm’s role is to stage experiences for its customers. Gupta and Vajic (2000, p. 35) identify diverse aspects of experience but they focus on examining the experience “as an economic entity in a setting deliberately designed by the service provider” and hence referring to an experience as a service product. They continue that an experience includes learning that takes place during interaction between a customer and a service provider and the settings that the service provider has created. During this interaction the customer and service provider together create an experience that is unique and context-‐‑specific. Similar aspects are
27
brought to the fore in the discussion of the co-‐‑creation of experiences (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a; 2004b; Scott et al., 2009).
Some researchers have adapted frameworks used in consumer behaviour to classify experiences. For example, experiences are differentiated by dividing them according to what kind of value they offer a customer: instrumental/utilitarian/ functional value or hedonic/experiential value (Gentile et al., 2007; Scott et al., 2009). However, it is important to recognise that the context and the type of product or service affect which kind of value is felt to be more important. Both kinds of value are present in the customer experience, but the context and the nature of the service defines what the customer perceives to be more important.
2.1.2 Diverse concepts of ‘experience’ in services management Several studies have discussed the concept of experience from diverse aspects. The service management literature includes several concepts of ‘experience’ such as consumption experience (Carú and Cova, 2003; Holbrook, 2006), customer experience (Gentile et al., 2007; Lemke, Clark and Wilson, 2011; Palmer, 2010; Walter, Edvardsson and Öström, 2010), total customer experience (Berry, Carbone and Haeckel, 2002; Mascarenhas et al., 2006), consumer experience (Carú and Cova, 2003; Schmitt and Zarantonello, 2013; Walls et al., 2011) and service experience (Helkkula, 2011; Pareigis, Echeverri and Edvardsson, 2012; Walter et al., 2010; Zehrer, 2009). The hospitality and leisure literature includes several contributions connected to concepts such as leisure experience, travel experience and tourist experience (e.g. Komppula and Gartner, 2013; Patterson and Pegg, 2010; Quan and Wang, 2004; Quinlan Cutler and Carmichael, 2010; Ryan, 2002; Scott et al., 2009; Uriely, 2005; Volo, 2009). Many of the studies focused on examining the concepts of experience in marketing and management field focus more on managerial activities and outcomes instead of discussing the underlying theories of customer experience (Verhoef, Lemon, Parasunaman, Roggeveen, Tsiros and Schlesinger, 2009). However, some authors have concentrated on analysing the nature and context of diverse experience concepts, such as consumption experience (Carú and Cova, 2003), consumer experience (Walls et al., 2011), service experience (Helkkula, 2011) and tourist experience (Uriely, 2005). Figure 2 illustrates how the interrelationships of the experience concepts are seen in this study.
28
Figure 2: Diverse experience concepts
This study acknowledges that not all consumption experiences are consumer experiences or extraordinary experiences (Carú and Cova, 2003), and in this study the interest is only on that part of consumption experience that is related to the market – the consumer experience. Next the different concepts of experience are discussed in more detail to explain the reasoning behind figure 2.
The concept ‘customer experience’ is commonly used in marketing and management studies. However, in many of the studies the concept is not well defined and the studies may also use other experience concepts interchangeably (e.g. consumer experience, service experience or tourist experience). The word customer can refer both to an individual consumer and to an organisation as a customer. Originally, customer experience was connected to the literature deriving from consumer behaviour (Gentile et al., 2007) and thus was connected to an experience of an individual consumer. The book “Experience Economy” by Pine and Gilmore (1999) presented the customer experience from a different perspective as it presented experiences as a new economic offering. Following this, several authors studied customer experience as a new way to create value for customers and businesses (Carú and Cova, 2003; Gentile et al., 2007; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a; Schmitt, 1999). Since then, the term customer experience has also been used in the business-‐‑to-‐‑business (B2B) context (e.g. Lemke et al., 2011).
Many definitions of a customer experience refer to the experience of an individual consumer – to consumer experience. Even if individual experiences have a central role in experience discussions, it is surprising that only a few studies have defined or use the concept of ‘consumer experience’. Schmitt and Zarantonello (2013, p. 30) state that the term consumer experience “(or rather “customer experience”)” has been used in marketing studies to refer marketing-‐‑related experiences. This statement brings forth the fact that consumer experience and customer experience are, in many studies, used as synonyms
EXPERIENCE
CONSUMPTION EXPERIENCE
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
CONSUMER EXPERIENCE
SERVICE EXPERIENCE
CONSUMER
SERVICE
EXPERIENCE
29
without necessarily giving a more detailed definition for them (e.g. Harris, Baron and Parker, 2000; Hogg and Banister, 2001; Tsai, 2005).
The definitions of ‘customer experience’ include several diverse elements that also characterise ‘consumer experience’. However, the small differences in the concepts should be noted. Customer experience is seen to originate from a set of interactions between a customer and a service provider or a product (e.g. Gentile et al., 2007; Gupta and Vajic, 2000; LaSalle and Britton, 2003; Shaw and Ivens, 2005), it is regarded personal (e.g. Schmitt, 1999), the customer is involved in it at different levels (e.g. rational, physical, and emotional) (e.g. LaSalle and Britton, 2003; Schmitt, 1999), and it is evaluated by a customer who compares his/her expectations and the stimuli that comes from the interaction between the service provider and/or its offering at different touch-‐‑points or moments of contact (e.g. LaSalle and Britton, 2003; Shaw and Ivens, 2005). Gentile et al. (2007) propose a multidimensional approach and describe the customer experience through six components that can be seen as dimensions of it, namely sensorial, emotional, cognitive, pragmatic, lifestyle and relational components. They also argue that the diverse components of the customer experience depend upon the characteristics of a particular product or service.
Some studies have used the term ‘consumer experience’ in particular and for example Kim, Cha, Knutson and Beck (2011) develop their definition based on common threads of previous research that have defined a customer experience. They find that a consumer experience is holistic (and thus multidimensional), involving diverse levels and individuals. According to Schmitt and Zarantonello (2013, p. 30), consumer experience is something that a consumer senses, perceives as well as being how (s)he evaluates marketing activities. The multidimensionality is also emphasised by Walls et al. (2011) who also highlight the consumer aspect and the consumer’s willingness to interact with businesses, services, and products: “[a] consumer experience is the multidimensional takeaway impression or outcome, based on the consumer’s willingness and capacity to be affected and influenced by physical and/or human interaction dimensions and formed by people’s encounters with products, services, and businesses influencing consumption values (emotive and cognitive), satisfaction, and repeat patronage” (ibid., pp. 17-‐‑18). Walls et al. (2001) also concede that consumers do not have their experiences in a vacuum, but that the experience is influenced, for example, by individual characteristics and situational factors. All these diverse factors may have a strong or weak impact on the consumer experience components and thus contribute to the formation of a unique individual experience.
Some studies also bring forth the temporal aspect of customer experience (Arnould, Price and Zinkhan, 2002; Carú and Cova, 2003; Verhoef et al., 2009; Tynan and McKechnie, 2009), and the temporality aspect has been discussed in the Nordic School of service marketing and management, especially related to customer-‐‑dominant logic. In these discussions, the customer experience is seen
30
to emerge in the customer’s life world and hence the temporal dimensions include also past (history) and future experiences of a customer (Heinonen, Strandvik, Mickelsson, Edvardsson, Sundström and Andersson, 2010; Heinonen, Strandvik and Voima, 2013; Helkkula et al. 2012). This is supported by the notion of subjectivity of experiences as “[s]ubjectivity includes the consciousness of a self which has a past, a present, and a future” (Schmitt and Zarantonello, 2013).
The definitions above emphasise the holistic nature and multidimensional characteristics of a customer or consumer experience. Aspects such as ‘interaction’, ‘personal’, ‘involvement’ and ‘emotional’ are connected to the definitions. Many of the components proposed by Gentile et al. (2007) and the aspects of the customer experience invoked by Verhoef et al. (2009) and Mascarenhas et al. (2007), and the studies made by the Nordic School of service marketing and management highlight the experience of an individual (e.g. emotional and related to lifestyle, emergence in the customer’s lifeworld) and are not necessarily suitable to describe a business customer experience. Many of the definitions also include references to two participants who co-‐‑create the consumer experience: a consumer or a customer and a supplier or a company. It is noteworthy that the business aspect is rather strong in some of the definitions, as, for example, Verhoef et al. (2009) discuss issues that are within a retailer’s control. In light of the discussion above it can be argued that the nature of a customer experience is dependent on considerations such as 1) whether a customer experience is an experience of an individual consumer or a business customer and 2) what kind of product or service it is related to.
As the discussion above shows, the concepts of experience have been conceptualised by using different characteristics and raising diverse issues. Table 3 gives an overview of some of the characteristics that are used in relation to the experience concepts.
31 Table 3: Characteristics of an experience
Ch
aracteristics/
issues ad
dressed
Maslow (1964)
Csikszentmihalyi (1975)
Abrahams (1986)
Turner (1986)
Arnould and Price (1993)
Otto and Ritchie (1996)
Pine and Gilmore (1998)
Schmitt (1999)
Gupta and Vajic (2000)
Carú and Cova (2003)
Knutson and Beck (2003)
LaSalle and Britton (2003) Johnston and Clarke (2005,
2012) Shaw and Ivens (2005)
Gentile et al. (2007)
Mascarenhas et al. (2007)
Meyer and Schwager (2007)
Verhoef et al. (2009)
Palmer (2010)
Walter et al. (2010)
Kim et al. (2011)
Lemke et al. (2011)
Walls et al. (2011)
Paregeis et al. (2012)
Schmitt and Zarantonello (2013)
Amount of appearance
Peak/extraordinary/mem
orable/flow
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
9 O
rdinary/mundane experience
X
X
X
X
4 Process/living through things
X
X
X
X
4
Evaluated outcome
X
X
X
X
X
5 Interaction
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
15 Personal/individual/subjective
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
13 Involving/Involvem
ent
X
X
X
X
4 Sensorial
X
X
X
3 Em
otional X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
14
Physical
X
X
X
X
4
Affective
X
X
X
X
X
5
Cognitive
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
7
Pragmatic
X
1 Lifestyle/social context
X
X
X
X
X
X
6
Relational/D
epends on context/situation X
X
X
X
X
X
5 H
olistic
X
X
X
3
Engaging
X
X
X
3 Enduring
X
1
Depends on the characteristics of a
product/service
X
1
Multiple elem
ents/multi-dim
ensional
X
X
X
X
X
5 O
ffers instrumental/utilitarian/functional value
X
X
2 O
ffers hedonic/experiential value
X
X
X
3 Tem
poral dimension
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
7
32
The commonly cited studies of experience made before the 1990s focus on the
experience as something that is ongoing in life. These definitions include, e.g. ordinary acts and embody feelings and meanings (see e.g. Abrahams, 1986). These studies bring forth experiences that are something extraordinary or memorable in comparison to more ordinary or everyday experiences. Arnould and Price (1993) can be regarded as the first ones that have adapted the concept of extraordinary experience in one particular consumption context when they studied white water river rafting. After their study, more authors have focused on studying experiences in consumption contexts. Studies made in service marketing and management usually examine the consumption, customer or service experience. The most common characteristics and issues that are connected to the concepts of experience are interaction, emotionality and personal, individual or subjective (see Table 3). Customer and consumer experiences have been studied in both retail (e.g. Verhoef et al., 2009) and service (e.g. Walter et al., 2010; Zehrer, 2009) contexts. In this study, the interest is in the service experience and thus the concept of ‘consumer service experience’ is discussed next. 2.1.3 Conceptualising the consumer service experience The concept ‘service experience’ is connected to the utilisation and consumption of services. It may refer to the whole process of interaction between a customer and a service provider, employees, service settings, other customers and environment (e.g. Johnston and Clark, 2005; Meyer and Schwager, 2007; Otto and Ritchie, 1996; Paregeis et al., 2012; Walter et al., 2010) or to the outcome of the service i.e. customer value (e.g. Meyer and Schwager, 2007; Otto and Ritchie, 1996). It is usually seen that service experience is provided or facilitated for customers by the service provider (McColl-‐‑Kennedy, Cheung and Ferrier, 2015). However the recent discussions bring forth that there is a need to move away from this kind of dyadic firm-‐‑customer perspective and accept a broader view that recognises that there potentially are multiple actors involved (Carú and Cova, 2015; Frow, McColl-‐‑Kennedy, Hilton, Davidson, Payne and Brozovic, 2014).
According to Helkkula’s (2011) extensive review, the concept of service experience can be distinguished by 1) phenomenological characterisations (relating to service-‐‑dominant logic and interpretative consumer research), 2) process-‐‑based characterisations (referring to understanding service as a process), and 3) outcome-‐‑based characterisations (relating to understanding a service experience as a part of a causal model).
The approach characterising service experience as a process, focus on the process elements, functioning and management of service experience (Dube and Helkkula, 2015). This includes the discussion of interaction between customers, employees, facility and technologies and the management discussions of service
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experience, and issues related to service experience formation, such as service design and service innovation (Edvardsson, Enquist and Johnston, 2010; Pine and Gilmore, 1998; Paregeis et al., 2012).
Service experience as an outcome emphasises the service experience as a consequence of other constructs (Helkkula, 2011). Studies aim to recognise e.g. factors that influence service experience (e.g. Verhoef et al., 2009). The service experience as an outcome is also seen to correspond to customers’ expectations and motivations (Menon and Bansal, 2007) as well as customer value, which is a subjective experience of the individual consumer (Gunn, 1994; Holbrook, 2006; Walter et al., 2010).
Service experience as a phenomenon implies that service experiences are “internal, subjective, event-‐‑specific and context-‐‑specific” and take place in customers’ everyday lives (Helkkula, 2011, p. 375). Interpersonal interaction is recognised as an important trigger from the phenomenological point of view, in which the experience is considered social and relational although specific to an individual (Helkkula, 2011; Jaakkola et al., 2015).
The recent conceptualisation of service experience by Jaakkola et al. (2015, p. 186) considers the different characterisations and the fact that the service experience can be the experience of different actors involved in the process: “Service experience is an actor’s subjective response to or interpretation of the elements of the service, emerging during the process of purchase and/or use, or through imagination or memory.”
In light of the reviews of the diverse definitions of experience concepts in this study, consumer service experience is defined as a subjective experience of an individual that includes the personal experience of the service process (including the interaction between a consumer and/or service provider, the environment, etc.) that leads to the experience of the outcome from the service, which may be experiential or not. The consumer service experience is influenced by the context, situational factors and personal characteristics, and it also needs to be noted that the experience emerges in the world the customer is living in and thus the consumer service experience is not restricted just to pre-‐‑experience, participation and post-‐‑experience but has a wider temporal scope.
2.2 SERVICE AS AN OFFERING
2.2.1 Types of services As Gentile et al. (2007) note, the characteristics of the particular service have an influence on the dimensions of a customer experience, the typologies of services need to be reviewed before defining experiential services. Traditionally, a service is differentiated from physical goods in different ways, but the most usually mentioned difference is that services are intangible (see e.g. Lovelock, Vandermerwe and Lewis, 1999; Walter et al., 2010). In addition to intangibility,
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services are described by using terms such as perishable (Kandampully, 2002), heterogenic (Dawes and Rowley, 1996) and simultaneous (Zehrer, 2009). Lovelock et al. (1999, p. 7) define services as follows: “Services are economic activities that create value and provide benefits for customers at specific times and places, as a result of bringing about a desired change in – or on behalf of – the recipient of the service”. More narrow definitions of services have relied on listings of industries and examples contained in the service sector (Cook, Goh and Chung, 1999).
The theory of service marketing underlines the added value of a service, which emerges at each stage of the service process (e.g. Grönroos, 2000). The goal and the desired outcome for a customer is value, which is a subjective experience of the individual consumer (Gunn, 1994; Holbrook, 2006; Walter et al., 2010). In some studies, a service product is seen to mean customer value; the service product offers the perceived benefits in order to meet the needs and desires of a consumer as well as giving value for money and service quality (Middleton and Clarke, 2001).
Several authors have pointed out that a service company cannot create value for a consumer, but that the value is generated in the service process (e.g. Grönroos, 2006) and a service company can provide the settings and prerequisites for services and facilitate service experiences (e.g. Edvardsson and Olsson, 1996). The prerequisites can be illustrated with a model including three basic components: service concept, service process and service system (Edvardsson and Olsson, 1996). The service system contains all of the resources available to the service process for realising the service concept (Edvardsson and Olsson, 1996). This includes the internal and external resources of a service provider. External resources include, e.g. the physical environment in which the service takes place. To be able to provide a working service process that leads to the realisation of the service concept (being the core of the service), all stakeholders need to be involved in the process. In other words, consumers, the service company’s personnel, technical and physical environments and the organisation that controls diverse resources need to be involved (Komppula, 2006; Konu et al., 2010). Thus descriptions and blueprints of the various activities and interaction between all actors are needed to be able to generate the service process (Konu et al., 2010). The service concept is the description of the needs and desires of a consumer and how they are to be satisfied (Edvardsson and Olsson, 1996; Komppula, 2006; Konu et al., 2010). This also refers to customer value (Komppula, 2006; Konu et al., 2010) and in this study to experiential value.
Service typologies are developed to address the complexities of services (Cook et al., 1999). Already in the 1940s, services were seen as one important sector of a post-‐‑industrial economy (Clark, 1940). Clark (1940) divided services into three groups, of which one was a group of ‘other services’ containing services aiming to involve and improve the customer (e.g. recreational, health-‐‑
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care and educational services). After that, services have been categorised in different ways based on diverse attributes such as the type of delivery, tangibility of service processes, the user sectors, the nature of service activity, type of client relationship and degree of standardisation, place and time of service delivery, contact intensity and variety of services, and which facilities, equipment and people are a part of the service experience (e.g. Bullinger, Fähnrich and Meiren, 2001; Fähnrich, Meiren, Barth, Hertweck, Baumeister, Demuß, Gaiser and Zerr, 1999; Glückler and Hammer, 2011, Lovelock and Wirtz, 2011).
Most of the service typologies have an organisational perspective as the aim is to “better understand the characteristics differentiating service organizations and to give researchers a foundation for developing theories about the forces at work within specific organizations” (Cook et al., 1999, p. 318). Cook et al. (1999) made an extensive review on service typologies and they developed a schematic representation including important dimensions of diverse classification schemes in the literature. According to them, research has typically focused on either the product or the process elements of services. They state the need to integrate both of the aspects of services and address the interaction between the two areas.
Some studies have examined the service from a customer experience perspective. In these studies, the customer experience is divided into core, related and other customer experiences (Heinonen et al., 2010; Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015), direct and indirect customer experiences (Dube and Helkkula, 2015), and core or peak and supporting customer experiences (Klaus and Maklan, 2011; Quan and Wang, 2004). The core customer experiences represent the customer’s experience of the core or essence of the service that is subjectively experienced referring also to service concept mentioned above. The total customer experience (from the service) is also influenced by related, other, and indirect customer experiences, which refer to e.g. experiences that are related to other actors or take place outside the service provider’s control (Dube and Helkkula, 2015; Heinonen et al., 2010; Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015). The supporting customer experiences are seen the ones that enable and facilitate the core experience (Klaus and Maklan, 2011; Quan and Wang, 2004).
Ng, Russell-‐‑Bennett and Dagger (2007) created a typology for mass services by categorising them based on purpose of consumption (hedonic or utilitarian) and service delivery (individual or collective). One starting point of their typology is in consumer motivation theory (hedonic and utilitarian needs). According to Addis and Holbrook (2001), products or experiences can be categorised into three groups (utilitarian, hedonic and balanced) based on the weight put on the subjective responses and objective features. In hedonic products (services), consumers put more weight on their subjective responses such as emotions, beliefs, or loyalty related habits (Addis and Holbrook, 2001). These emotional and hedonic aspects of consumption are emphasised in experiential consumption by Holbrook and Hirschman (1982).
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Some of the typologies and categories include the group of services that can be seen as experiential (e.g. hedonic products defined by Addis and Holbrook, 2001). However, these categorisations do not give a comprehensive picture of experiential services. 2.2.2 Earlier research on experiential services Grönroos (2007) emphasises that “[a]ll services are perceived as either positive, neutral or negative experiences” (2007, p. 12). This way of thinking refers to the service experience that is gained during the service interaction. A customer will have a service experience regardless of the type of service (s)he is consuming. However, the nature of the service experience can differ in relation to the type of service consumed.
According to Hirschman and Holbrook (1982), consumers purchase products and services mainly for utilitarian or hedonic purposes and, for instance, products and services such as art and tourism have predominantly a hedonic meaning. In experiential consumption, consumers are seen to focus on hedonic aspects and functions of a product or a service, but it is also recognised that products and services have both utilitarian and hedonic functions (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982). Experiential aspects of consumption have been highlighted by several authors (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Holbrook, O’Shaughnessy and Bell, 1990; Levy, 1959) and it is noted that the experiential elements of consumption processes are characterised comparing the experiential approach to traditional approaches (Frochot and Batat, 2013, p. 24, adapted from Bourgeon and Filser, 1995; Schmitt, 1999). Table 4 lists attributes that are used to illustrate the experiential nature of consumption. These characteristics also fit experiential services.
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Table 4: Characteristics of ‘experiential’ Characteristics Author(s)
Involvement or participation of an
individual
Knutson and Beck, 2003; Carú and Cova, 2003;
LaSalle and Britton, 2003; Shaw and Ivens, 2005
Internal Knutson and Beck, 2003; Carú and Cova, 2003
Personal Schmitt, 1999
Value provided/emerged
(hedonic/utilitarian), focus on
hedonic component
Addis and Holbrook, 2001; Arnould and Price,
1993; Bourgeon and Filser, 1995; Frochot and
Batat, 2013
Emotions and feelings, emotional
benefits
Bourgeon and Filser, 1995; Frochot and Batat,
2013; Gentile et al., 2007; Holbrook and
Hirschman, 1982; Schmitt, 1999; Schmitt and
Zarantonello, 2013
Non-verbal and sensorial stimuli Bourgeon and Filser, 1995; Frochot and Batat,
2013; Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Levy, 1959
Service consumed for itself Bourgeon and Filser, 1995; Frochot and Batat,
2013; Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Levy, 1959
Holistic perception, difficulty to
elaborate concise expectations
Bourgeon and Filser, 1995; Frochot and Batat,
2013
Symbolic Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Levy, 1959
Sensorial Gentile et al., 2007; Schmitt, 1999; Schmitt and
Zarantonello, 2013
Cognitive Gentile et al., 2007; Schmitt, 1999; Schmitt and
Zarantonello, 2013
Lifestyle Gentile et al., 2007; Schmitt, 1999
Relational Gentile et al., 2007; Schmitt, 1999
Pragmatic Gentile et al., 2007
Outcome: pleasure and memory Bourgeon and Filser, 1995; Carú and Cova, 2003;
Frochot and Batat, 2013
Examples of experiential services often come from experience industries such as tourism and hospitality (e.g. restaurants, theme parks, tourist destinations), and in previous studies, experiential services are in many cases described by giving
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examples of types of services that can be regarded as experiential. For instance, services that can be regarded as experiential are hair salon services (Albers-‐‑Miller and Stafford, 1999; Dabholcar and Walls, 1999; Patterson and Smith, 2003), travel services (Patterson and Smith, 2003), cruise vacations (Duman and Mattila, 2005) nightclub and restaurant services, entertainment and activity services, shopping services (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011), vacation and exercise services (McColl-‐‑Kennedy and Fetter, 2001). In addition of experiential service, different concepts are also used to express the experiential aspects of consumption in services, namely ‘experience’, ‘experiential offering’, and ‘tourist experience’ (Gupta and Vajic, 2000; Pine and Gilmore, 1998; Scott et al., 2009; Volo, 2009). Table 5 presents diverse conceptualisations and definitions of these.
Table 5: Experience as a service Representations of experience as a service or
experiential service
Author(s)
When a consumer buys an experience (s)he pays for the
possibility to spend time and enjoy diverse memorable events
that service providers “set on display”.
Mossberg, 2001; Pine
and Gilmore, 1999
“An organization delivers an experiential service when it
places the customer experience at the core of the service
offering. Such organizations focus on the experience of
customers when interacting with the organization rather than
just the functional benefits following from the products and
services delivered.”
Zomerdijk and Voss,
2011, p. 64
“…an experience involves learning during a period of time
when the customers interact with different elements of a
context created by the service provider. In the course of these
interactions, during which activities and context reinforce
each other, customers and service providers jointly create a
unique, context-specific experience.”
Gupta and Vajic, 2000
Experiential services are services that customers can evaluate
after they have been consumed/experienced.
McColl-Kennedy and
Fetter, 2001
Compared to utilitarian services, the experiential services are
characterised by higher levels of employee contact and
customisation having strong people orientation. Experiential
services are also closely connected to hedonic consumption as
they are more personal and connected to motivations and
attitudes of an individual, and are associated with emotions.
Albers-Miller and
Stafford, 1999; Stafford
and Day, 1995
The result of an experience “may (must?) be something
extremely significant and unforgettable for the consumer
immersed into the experience”.
Carú and Cova, 2003
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The representations of experience as a service or experiential service in Table 5 shows two different perspectives: the consumer perspective and the business perspective. For instance, Pine and Gilmore (1998) take an organisational perspective in which the staging of an experience has a central role, even though they acknowledge that “experiences are inherently personal, existing only in the mind of an individual who has been engaged on an emotional, physical, intellectual, or even spiritual level” (1998, p. 99). The business perspective also emphasise the element of interaction and employee contact in service provision (Albers-‐‑Miller and Stafford, 1999; Gupta and Vajic, 2000; Pine and Gilmore, 1998; Stafford and Day, 1995; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). In these definitions, the experience as a service or an experiential service is seen to be something that is also delivered, created for or designed for a consumer. However, several authors have noted that a company cannot provide or sell experiences but experiences can be facilitated by a service provider (McColl-‐‑Kennedy et al., 2015; Schmitt and Zarantonello, 2013). Schmitt and Zarantonello (2013) note that experiences are induced private events that occur as a response to stimulation, and businesses are focusing on the stimuli that may induce experiences for consumers.
The consumer perspective is connected to the internal and subjective experience of an individual. In experiential services, the hedonic aspects in seen to have strong role in the consumption (see e.g. Albers-‐‑Miller and Stafford, 1999), and as Carú and Cova (2003) note, the outcome for a consumer needs to be something significant and unforgettable. Hence, the consumer service experience of experiential service includes memorable experiences.
The experiential service should be examined from two different perspectives. However, the definitions presented above are rather limited and most of them focus either on the business or the consumer perspective. Some of them also fail to bring forth the characteristics of experiential services on a wider scale. The current discussion regarding experiential services seems to be limited to seeing the aim and motivation of consuming services as mainly hedonic (e.g. seeking fun, sensory simulation, arousal and enjoyment). On the other hand, several authors have contended that in addition to hedonic motivations, eudaimonic motivations also exist at the experiential level (Waterman, 2005; Waterman, Schwartz and Conti, 2008). Eudaimonia includes issues such as self-‐‑realisation, personal growth, realisation of one’s true potential and making life fulfilling (Ryan and Deci, 2000; Ryff, 1989). It is also noted that consumption is increasingly driven by the need for self-‐‑development and intellectual aspiration (Calver and Page, 2013; Richards and Wilson, 2006; Voigt, Howat and Brown, 2010). This study argues that consumption of an experiential service may be motivated both hedonic and eudaimonic motivations and it can provide hedonic and/or eudaimonic outcomes.
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Interaction between a consumer and a service provider is also seen as a central component in diverse conceptualisations (Table 5). However, memorable experiences do not necessarily require this kind of dyadic interaction, but the memorable experience may emerge in different situations, e.g. watching the sun set on holiday.
It is widely recognised that services can evoke a wide range of positive and negative emotions such as pleasure, fear, excitement and boredom (Koenig-‐‑Lewis and Palmer, 2010), and emotions are an important component of the consumer response (Havlena and Holbrook, 1986; Oliver, 1994; Richins, 1997; Woodruff, 1993). It can be argued that consumers’ emotions can have an influence on their service preferences and varied services may arouse different emotions for individual consumers. In addition, it should be noted that consumers bring their emotions and feelings to their interactions with products and services (Addis and Holbrook, 2001). Addis and Holbrook (2001) bring forth that the emotions of a consumer during a consumption experience is a part of the subjective response of a consumer. According to Richins (2007), positive experiences usually result in some specific positive emotion, such as happiness or pleasure, and negative feelings such as fear or frustration are typically associated with negative experiences. However, this is not necessarily the case, as it is noted that eudaimonic wellbeing does not necessarily exclude negative emotions, as people may experience positive psychological growth when they have serious life challenges (Ryff and Singer, 1998; 2003) which leads to a situation in which negative emotions may result to positive outcomes.
It is noted that in experiential services, the focus is not just on the functional benefits to be derived from the services delivered (Voss and Zomerdijk, 2007; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011), but increasingly on the experiential value a consumer obtains from the consumer service experience. In this study, the experiential value a consumer experiences when consuming an experiential service is seen as the core of the service. The experiential value is the subjectively evaluated outcome that emerges and comes through the service consumption process, and it is influenced by the personal characteristics, emotions and feelings of a consumer. The experiential value may include diverse consumption values (Sheth, Newman and Gross, 1991) and it can offer both extrinsic and intrinsic benefits (Mathwick et al., 2001).
This study agrees with the notion made by Scott et al. (2009) and Walls et al. (2011) that the experiential concept needs to be approached both from the consumer and business perspectives, and this applies also to experiential services. Hence, based on the discussion above it is noted that a business cannot create or provide an experience for a consumer, but it can offer the prerequisites and facilitate the experience. The experience a consumer will have is personal and includes diverse characteristics. The consumer also has a central role as (s)he is intensively involved in creating the experience. Hence, the outcome or the experiential value received by the consumer depends on the situation and
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prerequisites of the experiential service. An experiential service also includes an interactional element; however it does not necessarily refer to interaction between a consumer and a service provider, but may also refer to interaction with other consumers or interaction with the environment.
Based on the discussions above in this study an experiential service is defined as an economic activity in which a service provider provides prerequisites that enable a consumer, through involvement, to experience something that is internal and emotionally engaging or affective and appeals to a consumer’s hedonic and/or eudaimonic motivations, leading to experiential value. 2.2.3 A tourism product as an experiential service Tourism product can be defined in two distinct ways: first as a total tourism product including a combination of diverse elements or components a tourist consumes during a trip, and second as specific components (e.g. accommodation, attractions and transportation) that are offerings of individual tourism businesses (Koutoulas, 2004; Middleton, 1989). In this study, tourism product refers to the total tourism product that comprises from a set of tangible and intangible elements (Carmichael, 2005).
Tourists are seeking to experience certain activities or attractions at a destination, and consuming a tourism product, including bundle of services provided by service providers, offers tourists opportunities to access experiences sought (Koutoulas, 2004; Volo, 2009). Hence, tourism service is also referred in several studies as a tourist experience (Scott et al., 2009; Volo, 2009). Therefore, a tourism product can be defined both from a consumer perspective and from a service provider perspective. From a provider perspective the tourism product composes from diverse service modules that are specific service products provided by a single company or several companies at the tourism destination. From a consumer perspective, tourism product refers to the total tourist product as a tourist will have an experience from the whole trip regardless of whether the tourism services are bought separately or as a package (Medlik and Middleton, 1973).
Tourism consumption differs from other forms of services in several ways. The duration of the service experience of a total tourism product is longer as the customer stays a longer time in a different places and culture (Batat and Frochot, 2014) and it comprises several service modules (Komppula, 2006; Konu, 2015a). During this time, the customer will also experience several encounters with other actors and service providers in the service setting (Batat and Frochot, 2014). According to Batat and Frochot (2014), the service may also take place in locations where the tourist does not necessarily want to live on a daily basis, but they appreciate the resources the place has, such as weather and possibilities for certain activities. Hence, comparing tourism to some other services, the consumption experience is quite complex including complex mix functional, tangible and objective components, such as travelling and eating, and also
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hedonic, emotional and subjective components, e.g. enjoyment and socialising (Williams and Soutar, 2005).
Tourism studies have discussed ‘tourist experience’ both from social science, and marketing and management perspectives. From the social science perspective, the tourist experience is regarded as a peak experience that is usually connected to attractions and is seen to be the motivation for tourism (Quan and Wang, 2004). The peak experience – also referred as memorable experience – is regarded as a sharp contrast to daily experiences (Quan and Wang, 2004; Pine and Gilmore, 1998). In the marketing and management approach, tourist experience is treated as a consumer experience (Quan and Wang, 2004) and the word “experience” is used as a synonym for instance to visit, activity, product, service or behaviour (Volo, 2009).
According to Quan and Wang (2004), a tourist experience comprises two dimensions: the peak touristic experience (referring to the experience of attractions that formulates the major motivations for tourism) and the supporting consumer experience (referring to experiences of gratifying basic consumer needs during the trip, e.g. sleeping). However, Quan and Wang (2004) note that also some of the supporting consumer experience can turn out to be a peak experience. Walls et al. (2001) have a similar dichotomy as a part of their framework of hospitality and tourism experiences developed to describe diverse components and effects that influence the consumer experience. The framework contains two axes that represent aspects connected to a concept of an experience: ordinary–extraordinary (cf. peak experience–daily experiences by Quan and Wang, 2004) and cognitive–emotive. Tourist experience may hence include extraordinary experience and daily, more ordinary experiences. The tourist experience may also range from positive to negative experiences, and the tourist may have very different experiences from the same situation showing that the tourist experience is subjective and individual characteristics as well as situational factors influence it (see e.g. Ooi, 2005; Walls et al., 2011).
A positive memorable tourist experience (MTE) has been defined as a tourist experience positively remembered and recalled after the event has occurred (Kim, Ritchie and McCormick, 2012), which refers to the outcome from the service consumption. However, Kim et al. (2012) note that all tourist experiences do not necessarily translate into MTEs. The temporality aspect of the experience is emphasised by Tung and Richie (2011) who posit that a MTE is composed of expectations, affect, consequentiality and recollection, meaning that the experience encompasses the whole trip from pre-‐‑, during and post travel.
As noted in section 2.2.2, experiential services are subjectively experienced by an individual consumer and thus personal characteristics, needs and preferences influence the overall consumer service experience and to the experiential value a consumer receives. A tourism product can include several different service components that all together facilitate the experiential value formation for a consumer. However, the tourist product can also include services or service
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modules that a consumer wants to avoid. The consumer may be afraid of flying, but the flying to a destination may be a part of the tourism product. In this case, the flying can be seen to bring more functional value (means to travel from one place to another) in the tourism product. On the other hand, the mode of travel can also be the memorable experience as such (e.g. travelling across Siberia by Trans-‐‑Siberian Railway). Hence, it is subjective which parts of the tourism product are felt to be the most experiential or to create memorable experiences, and which services are desired and approached, and which avoided.
The subjective nature of a tourist experience is evident from the discussions above. The core of the tourist experience has usually referred to memorable experience or as a peak experience. However, it is important to recognise that all tourists do not necessarily expect memorable experiences form their trip (Komppula and Konu, 2012). The tourist experience is also seen to be the outcome of the tourism consumption process (consumption of the total tourism product) referring to the concept of customer value (or consumer value), which is regarded as a major contributor to the construct of customer experience (Middleton and Clarke, 2001; Palmer 2010). Even though the tourists gain their experience from the total tourism product, it needs to be remembered that the tourism product is formed from diverse service modules as noted in several studies (Batat and Frochot, 2014; Komppula, 2006; Konu, 2015a; Quan and Wang, 2004; Williams and Soutar, 2005). Hence, when the tourism product is examined, it should be noted that all service modules themselves can include both core and supporting experiences that together constitute the core and supporting experiences of the total tourism product.
In this study, a tourism product is seen as a customer’s subjective experience that has a certain price, includes a set of tangible and intangible elements (Carmichael, 2005), and that develops in a process where a customer utilises services by participating himself/herself in the creation process of the product (Komppula and Boxberg, 2002).
2.3 CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT IN NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT 2.3.1 Customer involvement in the development of offerings Several studies in different disciplines have emphasised the importance of customer involvement in service processes and in NSD (Alam and Perry, 2002; Bendapudi and Leone, 2003; Chan et al., 2010; Cheng et al., 2012; Hjalager and Nordin, 2011; Matthing et al., 2004; Nicolajsen and Scupola, 2011; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004a; 2004b; Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012).
Grönroos (2008) emphasises that firms should gain deep understanding of people’s everyday practices to be able to develop new services and to do this firms need to develop customer-‐‑firm interactions that affect customer’s value
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creating processes. Hence, the customer can be seen as a co-‐‑producer of the service and also as a co-‐‑creator of value (Grönroos, 2007; Lusch et al., 2007; Vargo and Lusch, 2004; 2006). It is also acknowledged that product and/or firm centric innovations are already partly replaced by the co-‐‑creation of experiences that act as a basis for value (e.g. Binkhorst and Den Dekker, 2009). In this study, co-‐‑creation refers to customer involvement in the offering creation process and to the associated value outcomes for the parties involved (Mustak et al., 2013).
Customer involvement in service innovations is defined as an interactive process including collaboration between current and/or potential customers and service providers in the process of service development based on identified latent needs of customers (Matthing et al., 2004). Customer involvement is usually used as a synonym for customer participation (Vargo, 2008) and this is also applied in this study. In relation to developing service offerings, customer participation is seen to refer “to a customer’s activities or provisions of tangible or intangible resources related to the development or creation of offerings” (Mustak et al., 2013). In this study, the customer involvement in developing service offerings include both the customer’s and service provider’s activities that are taken and resources allocated to co-‐‑create service offerings.
Customer involvement can be characterised by different types of behaviours (Edvardsson, Gustafsson, Kristensson, Magnusson and Matthing, 2006). According to Edvardsson et al. (2006), customers can be involved in two different ways in new service development. First, customers can be involved in order to learn more about customers including stated and latent needs, preferences and values. The aim is to understand customer needs to be able to identify things that create value for them. This corresponds to the notion of Nambisan (2002), when he refers a customer as a resource – a source of new service ideas. This type of involvement is applied usually in the idea generation phase (Nambisan, 2002) and it is practiced in many development processes (see e.g. von Koskull and Fougére, 2011). In the second type of involvement addressed by Edvardsson et al. (2006), customers can be involved as innovators or co-‐‑creators by using various pro-‐‑active techniques, such as idea creation, idea assessment, and creating new solutions to meet the recognised needs. The similar role is recognised by Nambisan (2002), when a customer is referred as a co-‐‑creator. Customers can act as co-‐‑creators when they take part in different service design and development activities. In this latter case, customers can be included, for instance, as members of an NSD project team. In addition to the two ways of customer involvement identified by Edvardsson et al. (2006), Nambisan has highlighted that a customer also has a role as a user of services. Customers as users can contribute to testing and commercialisation (Nambisan, 2002) by evaluating the suitability and functionality of services. The different roles of customers are also recognised by Hjalager and Nordin (2011) when they state that a customer may have an active or passive role in NSD depending on the level of interaction in the NSD.
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2.3.2 New service development New service development (NSD) refers to the process of generating, developing and launching new services and service offerings (Johnson, Menor, Roth and Chase, 2000). NSD can also be defined as a learning and knowledge creation process in which different kinds of information and gained knowledge are utilised and transformed to new services (Hargadon, 1998; Matthing et al., 2004).
According to Cooper (1994), the new product development (NPD) process can be defined as including a set of activities, tasks, actions and evaluations that lead from the idea generation to launch of a new service. Studies on NPD and NSD have introduced diverse development process models that support new product/service development. These models describe diverse phases and structures of NSD. For instance, Johnson et al. (2000), divide the NSD process into a planning stage containing idea generation and screening, a development stage including service design, process development and prototype testing, and a market launch stage that consists of marketing and educating staff and customers about the new offering.
Several NSD models have their roots in NPD theory and hence most NSD models include similar phases as traditional NPD models, namely strategic planning, idea generation and screening, business analysis, formation of cross-‐‑functional teams, service or product and process system design, personnel training, service or product testing and piloting, test marketing and commercialisation (Alam and Perry, 2002; Bendapudi and Leone, 2003; Bullinger et al., 2001; Hart and Baker, 1994; Kingman-‐‑Brundage and Shostack, 1991; Nambisan, 2002). Authors (Alam, 2006; Johnson et al., 2000; Menor et al., 2002) have differentiated the NSD processes from NPD processes by highlighting that the development of services is not a straightforward linear process in which one phase needs to be finalised before entering the next; the NSD process is hence seen to be an iterative process that includes inter-‐‑functional co-‐‑operation and overlapping phases. The NSD differs also from the NPD based on the outcome of the process: in NPD, the output is a new product but in NSD a service delivery process (Tatikonda and Zeithaml, 2002). In service development, customer involvement also has a central role as the customer is involved with the service during the whole service process (Alam and Perry, 2002; Ennew and Binks, 1996).
Many NSD models are originally developed and applied in the business-‐‑to-‐‑business context and/or have focused, for example, on financial and technological services (Alam, 2002; Alam and Perry, 2002; Alam, 2006). These models have also been applied in other service sectors. However, some authors have also developed NSD frameworks for some specific service industry sectors. For instance, Konu, Tuohino and Komppula (2010) introduced an NSD model that is designed for NSD in tourism. The authors have utilised concepts introduced by Edvardsson and Olsson (1996) and adapted by Komppula (2006), consisting of five stages adapted from earlier NSD and NPD models, and
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applied them to a tourist product context. The five stages of the framework are service concept development, service process development, market testing, commercialisation and post-‐‑introduction evaluation. The development starts from service concept development and it consists of idea generation, core product screening, concept testing and concept development. In the stage of service process development, service modules are created and developed. This phase also includes service blueprinting, (internal) prototype testing, business analysis and formal product blueprinting. Market testing consists of external testing and financial evaluation, and is followed by the last two phases, namely commercialisation and post-‐‑introduction evaluation. This framework is also applied in this study, as it has been developed and tested in NSD in the tourism context.
Most of the models of NSD built based on NPD processes do not discuss what the role of customers in the process is or they do not consider the diversified scale or qualities of different types of services. However, the role of the customers is acknowledged in some of the key principles of SDL, including the focus on the needs, wants and expectations of the customer, and these similar issues are recognised in the discussions of service design (SD) (Moritz, 2005; Wetter Edman, 2009). Service design is regarded as an interdisciplinary, holistic, and human-‐‑centred approach aiming to involve and integrate customers into the exploration and development processes with the service providers (Mager, 2009). In this study, SD is seen to include similar approaches and issues to customer involvement in NSD.
The type of service needs to be considered when new services are developed as the service type has an influence on the methods and processes for developing the service. For instance, the services that have low contact intensity and low variety can utilise approaches that are used in physical product development processes because the role of the customer is not necessarily regarded as very important in the development phase (Bullinger et al., 2001; Rust and Oliver, 1994). On the other hand, when services of high contact intensity and high variety are developed, more complex methods and processes are required because the role of the customer is much more interactive (Bullinger et al., 2001; Rust and Oliver, 1994). Hence, it can be argued that the development of a service product including several components and/or service providers (such as tourism product) is much more challenging than development of a low contact intensity and low variety service. It is also highlighted that NSD differs based on the type of innovation (i.e. the NSD is different for radical innovations compared to NSD for incremental innovations) (Johnson et al., 2000). Regarding experiential services, Zomerdijk and Voss (2011) have listed propositions concerning experiential service development. They bring forth that the experiential service NSD process should be systematic and flexible, the development process requires cross-‐‑functional teams and involvement of front-‐‑line employees, and it requires a broad base for creativity.
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Prahalad and Santos (2009) state that customers and users can be involved in early stages of the NSD processes by tapping tacit knowledge from them, and businesses can also get inspiration from customers’ new solutions to problems (Alam, 2006). Until recently, the pre-‐‑innovation phase (Prahalad and Santos, 2009) or fuzzy front-‐‑end of an innovation process, including the idea generation, idea screening and concept development stages of NSD (Alam, 2006), has been rather limited and less systematic in most businesses and have seldom included users. Customers have mainly been involved in the later stages of innovation processes, e.g. in testing prototypes, when a product is almost ready for sale and marketing (Alam, 2006; Prahalad and Santos, 2009). It is argued that businesses and developers should involve customers already in earlier phases of NSD processes when new opportunities and ideas are identified (e.g. idea generation, idea screening and concept development) (Alam, 2006; Prahalad and Santos, 2009).
Many of the recent customer involvement studies tend to focus on one phase of the NSD process even though the importance of involving customers throughout the NSD process has been emphasised (Alam and Perry, 2002; Edvardsson et al., 2012; Kristensson, Gustafsson and Archer, 2004; Kujala, 2003; Melton and Hartline, 2010; Sigala, 2012b). This may be due to the fact that businesses do not necessarily have the knowhow to involve customers into diverse phases of NSD. During the NSD process, businesses face challenges such as what methods should be used, how customers should be selected and motivated (e.g. do the customers have enough knowledge about the topic), and how the uncertainty of the project is managed (Lengnick-‐‑Hall, 1996; Nambisan, 2002). The willingness of a business has a central role if the customers are involved in NSD processes or not. For instance, customer involvement may require that the company has a flexible organisational structure, an open, innovation and information sharing culture, and supports the collaboration with the customers e.g. by providing time and other resources for NSD purposes (Sigala, 2012a). 2.3.3 Benefits and challenges of customer involvement in NSD Several studies (e.g. Alam, 2006; Lagrosen, 2001; Matthing et al., 2004; Kristensson et al., 2008; Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012) have acknowledged the needs and experiences of customers, and customer involvement as major determinants of success in NSD. Different benefits for businesses have been discussed widely in previous studies (Alam and Perry, 2002; Enkel, Kausch and Gassmann, 2005; Griffin and Page, 1996; Gruner and Homburg, 2000; Matthing et al., 2004; Olson, Walker and Ruekert, 1995; Sandberg, 2007; von Hippel, 2001). For instance, by involving customers in diverse phases or all stages of NSD, businesses can achieve customer attachment and acceptance of new services (e.g. von Hippel, 2001; Magnusson et al., 2003; Alam, 2006) hence improving the success of new services (Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012).
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Previous studies have stated that failures in the development of new services are usually caused by a lack of market orientation and understanding (Drew, 1995; Martin and Horne, 1995) and the fact that businesses have been unable to identify and utilise new market knowledge and customer insight (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1994; Menor, Tatikonda and Sampson, 2002). Having customer insight by involving customers is seen to bring competitive advantage as services developed in collaboration with customers better match customers’ needs (Alam and Perry, 2002; Magnusson et al., 2003). Other recognised benefits gained from customer involvement are positive development of customer relationships, faster NSD processes and launch of new services to market, speeded diffusion of innovations, and lower number of market failures (Alam and Perry, 2002; Enkel et al., 2005; Griffin and Page, 1996; Gruner and Homburg, 2000; Lagrosen, 2005; Matthing et al., 2004; Olson et al., 1995; Sandberg, 2007; von Hippel, 2001). However, there have been challenges to prove the benefits of the customer involvement in different NSD processes as many of the studies have concentrated on short term and financial benefits (Sigala, 2012a). According to Sigala (2012a), the benefits of customer involvement are usually long term benefits and thus rather difficult to measure and identify.
The studies of customer involvement usually concentrate on bringing forth how involvement benefits firms and companies, and hence the customer perspective in service development, e.g. how a customer benefits from participation or involvement, has received less attention (Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012). For example, studies on consumer motivations to participate in NSD activities have been rather rare. Some studies discuss customer motivations in new product development (Nambisan, 2002) and some of these motivations are seen to be applicable also in NSD. Many of the studies of customer motivation to participate in NSD are made in the online context (Antikainen, 2011; Bronner and de Hoog, 2011; Nambisan, 2002). According to the study of Nambisan (2002), customer motivations can be categorised to illustrate three types of benefits, namely product or service-‐‑related benefits, community related benefits and medium-‐‑related benefits. Other recognised motivations and benefits are ability to influence the development process and help to make better products and services, being part of a community, efficacy and fun, helping other customers and the business, and receiving a reward (Antikainen, 2011; Bronner and de Hoog, 2011; Lusch et al., 2007).
In NSD, the benefits and motivations are not necessarily connected to any physical product, but to the service process. This applies especially to services that aim to offer benefits that are connected to emotional and physical comfort of customers (Berry et al., 2006; Cheng et al., 2012). Hence, it may be argued that customers’ emotions have also a central role in the NSD processes and emotions that arise during the process have an influence on the outcome of the development process. It can be argued that based on the study of Sjödin and Kristensson (2012), customers’ willingness to participate to NSD process is
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higher if it is seen to provide positive experiences. Their study showed that negative experiences arose when the recruitment process, used methods, given instructions or the task itself were not liked or the customers felt that the requested task was too difficult or they were not capable to carry out the task from some other reasons (Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012). 2.4 METHODS OF CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT IN NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT Different methods can be used to involve customers in NSD processes. The characteristics of services, such as intangibility, bring their own challenges not only to the development process, but also to the applicable methods during the process. Services are usually tailored to individual buyers or customers at the point of purchase (Thomke, 2003) and hence it is not easy to test services in laboratories and they cannot be tested through large samples (Meiren and Burger, 2009; Thomke 2003). This brings additional challenges to service developers when they are planning NSD processes and selecting methods how customers are involved in the process. One problem may also be that managers are not necessarily aware of the methods of involving customers in NSD or know how to interpret the customer voice (Alam, 2006; Sigala, 2012a).
According to Wetter Edman (2009), the similarities between SDL and SD has given a fruitful ground for businesses and developers in adapting service design methods and tools in development processes. It is noted that traditional methods (e.g. questionnaires and interviews) still serve their purpose supporting design processes (Miettinen, 2009). Nevertheless, it has been claimed (Cayla and Arnould, 2013; Hoyer, Chandy, Dorotic, Krafft, and Singh, 2010; Matthing et al., 2004; Sigala, 2012a) that traditional customer research methods that are used to collect customer information and involve customers are not efficient enough to reveal the latent needs of customers. Using these classical methods usually lead to incremental innovations instead of radical innovations (Matthing et al., 2004). For example, it is recognised that in the tourism sector new services are in many cases improved versions of existing services or new combinations of services (Brooker and Joppe, 2014; Camisón and Monfort-‐‑Mir, 2012) or that innovation activities lead only to small changes of services (Pikkemaat and Peters, 2006). Naturally selecting diverse methods needs to be made based on the goal of the development process and the nature of the service that is aimed to be developed. For example, it is argued that when experiential services are developed diverse phenomenological methods, and emphatic and ethnographic approaches should be used (Helkkula et al., 2012; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). The innovative ways and tools used by service designers such as visual diaries, storyboarding, design workshops, collage, and mind-‐‑mapping, may also contribute the development processes (Miettinen, 2009).
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Several approaches have been used to study customer involvement in NSD and to gain customer insight. These approaches include both qualitative and quantitative methods. Surprisingly, there are only a limited number of studies that have tried to categorise, map and evaluate the diverse customer involvement methods applied in NSD, although a few exceptions exist.
Studies of Alam (2002), Edvardsson et al. (2012) and Komppula and Lassila (2014) have evaluated usefulness and usability of different customer involvement methods by using different criteria for the evaluation: mode of customer information (Edvardsson et al., 2012), managerial criteria, such as strengths and challenges of data collection and costs (Komppula and Lassila, 2014), and purpose, stage, intensity, and mode of involvement (Alam, 2002). In addition to these, it is important to examine what kind of information (e.g. related to service concept, service process and service system) is gained through the process and to which phases of NSD the information is contributing. In this thesis, the applied customer involvement methods are discussed by utilising criteria adapted from previous studies of Alam (2002), Edvardsson et al. (2012) and Komppula and Lassila (2014) and by considering nature of information gained especially from the point of view of experiential service development.
Even though several authors (Alam and Perry, 2002; Kristensson et al., 2004; Kujala, 2003; Melton and Hartline, 2010; Sigala, 2012b) have highlighted customer involvement throughout the NSD process, Edvardsson et al. (2012) found out in their study that most NSD studies used simplex methods, meaning that the data were mostly collected just in one of the NSD phases. This means that the information is collected one time only and the customers do not get feedback or information how the information was utilised. Hence Edvardsson et al. (2012, p. 427) recommend that businesses should use “duplex methods” that would facilitate dialogue between customers and developers. They also conclude that using just one same method in every stage of the whole NSD process does not necessarily provide the most useful information. It is argued that using a dialogue approach where collected information is fed back to the customers gives more comprehensive information from the customers and helps businesses to develop the services in the direction preferred by the customers (e.g. Edvardsson et al., 2012).
This study recognises the different propositions related to experiential services and their development as characterised by Zomerdijk and Voss (2011). In addition to the provider’s perspective of development presented by Zomerdijk and Voss (2011), in this study the customer approach is acknowledged and customer involvement is seen to have a central role in the development of experiential services including both the customer’s and service provider’s actions and resources allocated to co-‐‑create service offerings.
It is important to note that the service experience can refer to the experiences of different actors (e.g. consumer, service provider, and other customers) involved with the service. In this study, the focus is on the consumer service
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experience and how it is co-‐‑created within the experiential service development framework.
Given that tourism product development starts with the development of a service concept (Komppula and Boxberg, 2002; Komppula, 2006), it is important to try to ascertain exactly what issues and components offer value to whom. According to Komppula (2006), differing value expectations create differing demands – also for the service process and service system of a tourism product. Thus, the service process (including the services and interaction) and the service system (including e.g. external resources such as destination resources) affect the consumer service experience (e.g. Komppula and Boxberg, 2002; Tuohino, Konu, Hjalager and Huijbens, 2013).
The NSD process includes different phases. Even though this study utilises the NSD stages presented by Konu, Tuohino and Komppula (2010), it is acknowledged that the development of experiential services is not a linear process, but more iterative in nature. The customer involvement methods and approaches used influence the information gained, the processes and the experiences gained from the process. Hence, it is important to discuss and examine the methods used during the development processes. Figure 3 summarises the central issues and themes discussed in this theory section and presents the framework for the empirical study.
Figure 3: Developing experiential tourism services – framework for the empirical study
Customer involvement: actions and resources of customers and service providers
Experien6al service development: -‐ Characteris6cs of experien6al tourism service -‐ Co-‐crea6ng consumer service experience
Service concept, service process, service system
Customer involvement methods:
-‐ Contribu6on of methods
-‐ Informa6on gained
Phases of NSD process
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3 Research strategy
3.1 SCIENTIFIC APPROACH AND THE RESEARCH STRATEGY
To be able to study experiential services, it is important to recognise the subjective nature of experiences. In order to gain more profound information about the phenomenon under investigation, studies in the fields of service marketing and management and tourism have called for the use of interpretative and interactive qualitative methods and approaches (Edvardsson et al., 2012; Helkkula et al., 2012; Ryan, 2010; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011). For instance, Ryan (2010) highlights that because a tourist experience is subjective and people experience the same situations in different ways, it is essential to study these experiences from the perspectives of the individuals involved. It is also argued by Palmer (2010) that quantitative research techniques may be incapable of eliciting a response from a potential customer when a new customer experience is developed, because it is difficult to recognise the emotional and situational context of the experience by using these kinds of methods.
This study adopts a constructivist world view and it is recognised that multiple realities exist and the reality is about individual and group interpretations as well as an output of cognitive and social processes (Blaikie, 1993; Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008; Lincoln, Lynham and Guba, 2011). Qualitative research includes a set of interpretive practices that make the world visible and therefore has an interpretive and naturalistic approach to the world (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011). Qualitative research is used to increase understanding, explore and describe a certain phenomenon and qualitative data can be acquired by using different research designs (e.g. narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnographies, case study) leading to a variety of empirical materials (e.g. interviews, observations, stories, personal experience and case study) (Creswell, 2014; Denzin and Lincoln, 2011).
This thesis takes a case study approach to gain a better understanding of a phenomenon (e.g. Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). In a case study examination, it is permissible to focus on the case and retain a real-‐‑world, holistic perspective (Yin, 2014). Eriksson and Kovalainen (2008) argue that as both qualitative and quantitative data can be used to construct a case, the case study research should be understood as a research approach rather than a method (see also Yin, 2014). Yin (2014) has a twofold definition of case studies. The first part of the definition focuses on the scope of a case study and the second on the features of a case
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study. He states that ‘[a] case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the “case”) in depth and within its real-‐‑world context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context may not be clearly evident’ (Yin, 2014, p. 16).
There are three types of case study: intrinsic, instrumental and multiple. An intrinsic case study is conducted in order to better understand one particular case and the case itself is of interest. In an instrumental case, the aim is to gain an insight into an issue or to redraw a generalisation. Hence, the actual case supports and facilitates understanding of something else. In other words, the case helps to achieve an external interest (Stake, 2005). In a multiple case study (collective case study), a number of cases can be studied jointly to investigate a phenomenon, population or general condition (Stake, 2005).
This thesis constitutes from three individual case studies that are intrinsic and intensive in nature. All of the individual case studies aimed to get better understanding of the particular case and they give their contribution for the tourism NSD processes examined. However, as a part of this thesis these individual cases contribute to the main purpose of the thesis instrumentally by increasing understanding about customer involvement and diverse customer involvement methods in experiential tourism service development, making the whole thesis as an instrumental case study (Figure 4). In case 3, it is also recognised that in addition to the focus of the case itself, the case also contributes instrumentally by examining issues related to the NSD process.
Figure 4: The case study approach in this thesis
The data for all the cases were collected in different tourism research and development projects. Hence, the funding partly guided the selection of these
Thesis: Instrumental case study
Intrinsic case 1
Intrinsic case 2
Intrinsic case 3 (incl. also
instrumental purpose)
Instrumental contribution
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particular cases. However, all the cases are tightly connected to the phenomenon under examination. 3.2 DATA COLLECTION AND METHODS OF ANALYSIS Each of the articles presents a case study that has different sets of empirical data. Different data collection and analysis methods are also used. In this study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used, as it is stated that it is recommended to use diverse sources of data and methods in case study research (e.g. Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). Two of the articles have strong methodological focus and hence the research methodologies and approaches have been discussed in the articles in detail. Next, an overview of the data collection approaches, methods and analyses is introduced in this section and more detailed explanation is presented in each article. 3.2.1 Ethnographic approach In the first article, the data about the product testing phase of the NSD were collected using an ethnographic approach in order to obtain versatile information about on-‐‑site product testing. The data were collected during a tourism product test on-‐‑site in north Karelia, Finland, 25-‐‑30 August 2013. In order to get feedback from different perspectives, the test group was formed from eight Japanese customers and two representatives of a tour operator that offers trips to Finland for Japanese tourists.
The data were collected by means of participant observation, group interviews and customer feedback surveys by the author of this paper. During the participant observation, the focus of observation was on the service environments, the customers and the interaction between service providers, customers and the environment. In addition, the researcher reported also her own experiences of diverse situations. The data from participant observation comprise field notes (including both emic and etic perspectives) and a number of pictures taken from different situations and activities.
Test customers were also asked to fill feedback surveys on a daily basis. The questionnaire included the questions: what activities and/or things were the best during the day, what could be improved, and what is the overall assessment of the day? In addition, they were asked to evaluate each service module of the day by using a star rating. By the end of the trip, there was also an additional questionnaire that was used to get an overall assessment of the whole trip. The Japanese test customers filled out the questionnaire in Japanese and the representatives of the tour operator in English.
The third data set was collected by conducting two group interviews to supplement the information gained from participant observation and customer feedback forms. In one interview, two Japanese women and in the other two
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representatives of the tour operators were interviewed. The interviews dealt with the experiences of the test customers, e.g. what was the most memorable experience, what was the best part of the trip, and what they would improve. The interviews lasted 18 and 24 minutes respectively.
The raw data were prepared for by typing field notes and transcribing interviews. In addition, the interpreter that took part in the test trip translated the written Japanese feedback responses into Finnish. The overall data consisted of the field notes (26 pages), written responses of the test customers (53 pages) and the two interviews.
The data were read through by the researcher several times and it was organised first in the order the material was gathered each day. This helped to make a description of the whole trip from beginning to end. The trip description included a depiction of all activities day by day and activity by activity, telling the story of the whole week. In the description, additional material related to the overall product and individual service modules was used. The interpretation of the data was discussed with the interpreter and the tour guide that had gained experiences from the whole trip.
For the purpose of the article, where the focus was not the ethnographic description of the trip as such but the usability of the ethnographic approach in NSD, the collected data were analysed by using the same perspectives that Edvardsson et al. (2012) employed when they studied customer integration within service development. The data were analysed using a qualitative content analysis that interprets meanings, themes and patterns that are visible or latent in the data examined (Çakmak and Isaac, 2012). The four perspectives by Edvardsson et al. (2012), namely the form of the information generated, innovation knowledge, degree of interactivity, and reporting and need identification, were used as an analysis framework and as the main themes in the analysis. To obtain more detailed and profound information, an inductive perspective was also adapted to ground the examination of themes that came up under each main category. In examining the information generated and the innovation knowledge, a differentiation was also made between the kinds of information obtained using the different data gathering methods in the ethnographic approach. 3.2.2 Delphi method In the second paper, the Delphi method was used to collect data for developing new nature tourism services. The focus was on the idea generation and testing phases in particular. At the beginning of the process, the design choices were made by following seven criteria (Day and Bobeva, 2005). The choices were made based on the goals of the study, in which the aim was to gather new ideas for NSD and test the collected ideas. The two Delphi rounds were built to support this goal: the first round was conducted to collect the ideas and the
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second round to test and evaluate the ideas. The other choices made are discussed in more detail below.
In this case study, the panel of experts were potential customers as the customers are seen as being the experts required for saying which kinds of products and services they are interested in. In this study, the informants taking part in the development process were potential tourists to the area, as they are expected to have experience of nature-‐‑based tourism or activities and/or the area to be developed.
The Delphi panellists were recruited by organising an open call for product developers. The call opened at the beginning of May 2013. In the call no detailed criteria for participating were set, but the respondents were supposed to be interested in developing nature tourism in the area. The call was launched by using a variety of electronic channels that were thought to be used by tourists interested in nature-‐‑based tourism (Facebook sites, national outdoor recreation websites, Twitter, mailing lists, as well as on websites belonging to a variety of organisations, DMOs and businesses) and by utilising a diverse range of stakeholders (the organisation responsible for the hiking area, a research institute, the regional destination marketing organisation and the business network involved in the process). The form used for signing up included questions about previous visits to Ruunaa, possible hobbies that are connected to nature and also other activities related to nature, the outdoors and tourism. Also, basic information as well as contact information was collected. Altogether 105 people signed in as product developers. Two of the responses were missing contact information so they were excluded from the study.
The Delphi study was implemented by organising two Delphi rounds using an online eDelphi tool (eDelfoi.fi). The tool makes it possible to manage a panel by sending e-‐‑mails to panellists, using the platform as a survey tool (several different rounds and queries can be added), drawing summary reports, sharing material etc. All the panel participants remain anonymous and even the researcher cannot connect the responses to individual panellists. However, the researcher sees the list of panellists who answered the questions. This kind of procedure guarantees the anonymity of the panellists.
The objective of round one was to get new ideas for nature and outdoor tourism products for the Ruunaa Hiking Area. The questions for the first round were tested beforehand and, based on the comments of the testers, the questions were slightly modified. The questions of the first round questionnaire were open-‐‑ended questions: What would your dream wellbeing, nature and outdoor related holiday in Ruunaa be like? What would your dream adventure holiday in Ruunaa be like? Both of the questions were followed by more detailed guidelines and sub-‐‑questions, e.g. about the preferred experiences and services, and travel company.
The invitation for the Delphi panel was sent via the eDelphi tool. The 103 potential panellists received an invitation to sign into the system and answer the
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questions, and altogether 60 panellists answered the questions (the response rate being 57.3%). The responses had different forms as some of them were written in story form and some of them just giving listings of services or things that they wanted the holiday to contain.
A narrative analysis was used to draw different kinds of product descriptions. In a narrative analysis, a researcher interprets and organises the empirical data in such a way that the results construct one or more narratives, which are then discussed and interpreted (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). In this study, as the aim was to form different product theme narratives based on the responses, the responses were analysed by focusing on the meaning, which means that the analysis focuses on the content of the narrative, namely on issues, themes and patterns (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). The empirical data were organised using thematic analysis in which different themes of the responses from the first Delphi round were examined and, based on the themes, storylines were developed. Thus, the narratives developed are constructed by the researcher and the construction of the narratives formed a central part of the analysis (see e.g. Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). As a result, nine thematic tourism products were formed based on the analysis.
In addition to the narrative analysis, a thematic analysis was carried out to collect comments and suggestions related to services and activities. These comments and suggestions were categorised into six themes, namely accommodation, activities, services, relaxation and pampering, food, and service environment. The summary report for Round 1 included the narrative stories (thematic product descriptions) and results from the thematic analysis.
The aim of the second round was to evaluate the appeal and interest, and also gain possible critical opinions regarding the thematic products (narratives). The second round aimed to obtain concrete and detailed information about how interesting the developed service (theme) products are to the respondents, what kinds of feelings they invoke, what kinds of improvements are required and for whom the panel see the products and service modules being suitable for. The panellists were asked to choose four thematic products they were most interested in and describe: What kinds of feelings they get from the product? What is good? What is bad or what would they improve? Would they take part in this kind of trip? Who is the product suitable for? If the respondents wished they could evaluate more than just four products. The invitation for the second round was sent to the panellists via the eDelphi tool. Altogether 37 panellists answered the questions, which made the response rate 61.7%.
Based on the responses, the appeal and content of the products and product themes were evaluated by analysing the data product by product by using thematic analysis (positive and critical comments e.g. related to the content of the thematic product, service components of the product and price). The appeal was also measured by calculating the number of comments related to each product, and the products were ranked based on the number of the comments.
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The summary report was made based on the evaluations of individual products and an evaluation of the appeal of the products partly based on the number of comments.
As the goal of this paper was not to report the results and the content of the collected data as such, but examine the suitability of the Delphi method in new service development, the method was evaluated using selected criteria adapted from Alam (2002), Edvardsson et al. (2012) and Komppula and Lassila (2014) and by considering the critical aspects of the Delphi technique identified by Donohoe and Needham (2009), Hsu and Sandford (2007) and Keeney, Hasson and McKenna (2011). In addition, emphasis is placed on evaluating what kind of information is gained through the process. 3.2.3 Longitudinal action research The third paper presents a case study of a real-‐‑life NSD project as an instrumental case study that aims to offer an insight into customer involvement throughout the development process of a new service, and to support and facilitate our understanding of the possible opportunities and challenges of involving customers in a new tourist service development project. The results of the process, namely the findings and implications of the actual data acquired from the customer involvement, have a secondary role in this paper.
The researchers drew on longitudinal action research that they undertook during their involvement in the development process. Action research is seen to be suitable when the research question aims to describe series of actions that take place over time (e.g. in an organisation) and aims to understand development or find a solution to some actual problem in order to learn from it (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). The focus of research is chosen together with the researchers and the stakeholders involved (Greenwood and Levin, 2007 cited in Levin and Greenwood, 2011, p. 29) and hence action research should be seen as an approach that requires involvement, participation and close relationship to the research object (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008). In this case study, several data collection methods were used during the NSD process. The customers were involved in two distinct phases of NSD by utilising two different customer involvement methods, namely narrative approach and virtual product testing surveys. The narrative approach was applied to collect stories for the idea generation phase of the service concept, and virtual product testing surveys were used for the external market testing of two tourist products developed based on the stories gained from the narrative analysis. The customers involved in the NSD process were already customers of the company and hence had experience of the company’s services.
This NSD process involved the personnel of the case company as well as external researchers, who gathered and analysed the data acquired from the customers, discussed the issues with the hotel managers and sales personnel, and were in close contact with the person responsible for product development.
59
At the end of the project, the product development person was interviewed about the outcomes of the project. The second author also participated in operational meetings of the board of the company during the process.
In the first phase of the project, a narrative approach was chosen as the main focus of interest was to get customers’ own interpretations of a “dream Feelgood wellbeing holiday in Lapland”. In this case, a short topical story about a particular issue (Chase, 2005) was chosen to represent the narrative approach. Data were gathered by sending e-‐‑mails to the company’s Finnish customers (22,941 registered customers) asking them to send their stories of the Lapland Feelgood holiday of their dreams to the email address set up for the study. A few elaborative questions and some background information of the respondents were asked. A total of 362 responses was received, of which 268 (74%) were from women and 94 (26%) were from men. The responses varied in length (a few words to more than a page) and form (listing of things to stories written in epic poems). The end result of 362 narratives comprised 131 pages written by 268 females, and 31 pages of text written by 94 males, and it was regarded that the amount and quality of the data were sufficient for the purposes of the NSD process.
The narratives stories were interpreted by repeatedly reading through the data. Special attention was paid to the differences emerging between target groups and to what was common within them. In the formation of groups, the focus was on the interpretations of the Feelgood service concept, parts of the service process and service system that were important for each group. The analysis resulted in nine new dream holiday stories for different target groups based on their differing expectations of experiences and the ensuing wishes and needs.
After a resource and rough business analysis, the company chose two stories which were developed into concrete product proposals. An electronic survey was used to implement the external testing in the form of a virtual product test. The virtual product testing was intended to reach a large number of potential but targeted customers within the company’s customer base as well as to test the attractiveness, saleability and price of the offering. The survey included structured and open-‐‑ended questions. The responses related to both of the studied tourism products were analysed separately. The responses to structured questions were analysed by using basic statistical methods such as frequencies and cross-‐‑tabulation. The data from the open ended questions were analysed by thematic analysis utilising the ATLAS.ti programme.
The paper focuses on describing and evaluating the NSD process and the emphasis on the actual content for the products is described in the paper only on that level that the reader can follow the process. However, the process produced very detailed reports about the customer preferences and opinions of the products.
60
4 Research findings reviewed
and supplemented
This chapter summarises the main findings from the research articles and supplements them by reflecting the results on the theoretical discussions of this thesis. 4.1 ARTICLE 1: DEVELOPING A FOREST-BASED WELLBEING TOURISM PRODUCT WITH CUSTOMERS – AN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH This paper aims to respond to the call for more qualitative and phenomenological methods to study service experiences and experiential services (Helkkula et al., 2012; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011), and use the ethnographic approach in a novel way in tourism studies by applying it in new service development (NSD) context. The main aim of the paper is to examine the usability and usefulness of ethnographic approaches in regard to NSD in tourism, especially in the external product testing phase. In addition to the evaluation of the suitability of the ethnographic approach, the study examines how customer involvement contributes to diverse components of an experiential tourism service.
The data were collected during an on-‐‑site product testing trip. The test customers represented the potential target group of the tourism product under development. The data were collected using the ethnographic approach during the trip.
The findings show that an ethnographic approach can be applied and is useful in the product testing phase of NSD. The combination of three data sets, participant observation, feedback surveys and group interviews, provided rich and versatile data sets that complemented each other well. Applying this kind of approach enables quite intensive customer involvement in the development process. In particular, the observations revealed how the test customers interacted with each other, with the service providers and in different service environments, showing that the consumer service experience indeed involves several actors and does not focus solely on the dyadic interaction between the customer and the service provider.
61
The customers had active roles and they were very much involved in the development process, as they invested their own resources in order to participate in the testing (they paid for their own trip to the destination). They also actively took part in the activities and evaluated the services on a daily basis.
The information obtained from the three data sets were not just connected to the particular service modules and the overall tourism product tested. In addition, information and suggestions were related to development of the service concept, service process and service system, as well as its commercialisation.
One of the most important benefits of an ethnographic approach, especially participant observation, is that it enables service providers to get deep customer insight related to the emotions of customers in particular. The emotional aspect has been highlighted in experiential services and hence when experiential tourism services are developed it is important to know what kind of emotions the service arouses in consumers. This supports the development of a service concept of the service developed.
Usually, service development focuses just on the usability or functionality of the services and to service encounters, with the studied and developed service encounters being rather brief in many service sectors (Bitner, 1990). As a service, a tourism product differs from many other services because the duration of the service experience is longer, as the experience of the overall tourism product composes from several encounters and a set of service modules. Valuable information gained by using participant observation, such as information about emotions in diverse situations and contexts, and service modules that raise these emotions, would be missed if the data in this case were collected just by using feedback questionnaires and interviews. In this case the strong emotional experiences were gained mostly during service modules that were realised in natural environments and were guided in some way. These emotional consumer service experiences that bring value to a customer are the core (service concept) of the tourism product. However, it needs to be noted that in a tourism product all service modules produce a consumer service experience for the consumer. Nevertheless, all service modules themselves may include the core and supporting experiences for a consumer, which in the end leads to the overall experience of the tourism product supporting the notion by Quan and Wang (2004).
In addition to benefits of the ethnographic approach, some challenges were also identified, e.g. the approach is very time consuming and thus expensive. The study also brings forth issues related to using the ethnographic approach in product testing on-‐‑site. Based on these issues, some lessons learned and suggestions are listed as they may help if a similar approach is used in the product testing phase for other NSD cases.
The study also revealed several managerial implications, for instance, related to what kind of information the service providers gained from the process to
62
develop their services targeted especially for the potential target group. The study also showed that guided activities in a natural environment were the ones that brought the most positive emotional experiences. Hence, attention should be paid to the knowhow of the guides as being facilitators of the emotional experiences concerned. 4.2 ARTICLE 2: DEVELOPING NATURE-BASED TOURISM PRODUCTS WITH CUSTOMERS BY UTILIZING THE DELPHI METHOD This paper aims to examine a method that is not usually used in consumer involvement in general or for NSD purposes in the experiential tourism service development context. Hence, the paper focuses on assessing the suitability and opportunities for utilising the Delphi method in the tourism sector by examining the applicability of the method in data collection and customer involvement for different purposes in new service development (NSD). This is done by introducing an NSD case aiming to find and evaluate ideas for nature tourism products.
Data were collected by using two Delphi rounds and the suitability of the method was evaluated for selected criteria and describing the type of information that was gained during the process. The collected data were analysed so as to be able to describe and evaluate the method based on the set criteria (adapted from Alam, 2002; Edvardsson et al., 2012; Komppula and Lassila, 2014) and by considering the critical aspects of the Delphi technique. The results discuss the purpose, stage, intensity and mode of involvement, strengths and weaknesses of data collection and analysis, implementation in practice, and type of customer information – context and situation.
The results show that the Delphi method is well suited to customer involvement in the front-‐‑end stages of NSD of a tourism service because the data collected provide a wealth of information, especially for service concept and service system development during the idea generation and evaluation phases.
Some studies have noted that utilising customer ideas and opinions in NSD may be challenging because customers may not be able to tell, or they do not necessarily know what they want. It is also noted that customers may have very different levels of experience of the issues that are being developed and customers have been categorised customers into three different groups based on their experience, namely very experienced, ordinary and greenhorns (Edvardsson et al., 2012).
The nature and the characteristics of the service need to be taken into account when services are developed. The study by Edvardsson et al. (2012) that introduced the categorisations of customers based on their experience was
63
carried out in a technological services context, in which it can be assumed that technical experience and know-‐‑how plays a central role. When experiential services such as tourism are developed, the functional aspects of the service are naturally important, but not necessarily as important as experiential aspects of the service. Thus, it can be argued customers who have experience and knowledge of the theme or topic, or have had experiences in the area in which the services are developed, can be regarded as experts in that field because they know well what kinds of experiences they are looking for when they are travelling to a particular destination or taking a part in a certain kind of trip. This supports the argument of Donohoe and Needham (2009) who state that the Delphi particularly suits tourism research where participants (different actors in tourism) are increasingly key contributors to the research process and outcomes.
Several customer involvement methods can be categorised as simplex methods, meaning that they are used to collect data from customers but they provide only a little or no feedback to the customers involved (Edvardsson et al., 2012). It is recommended that dialogue based methods, which also give information to the respondents and not just the service provider, should be used (Edvardsson et al., 2012). As the study shows, the Delphi technique’s iterative nature makes it possible for customers to contribute to the process in several phases of NSD and also change and evolve their opinions and suggestions.
The study also shows several managerial implications. First of all, it may help the service provider in prioritising and taking actions (Edvardsson et al., 2012) when customers are involved in the interpretation of the information during the Delphi process. In this case, several actors benefitted from using the Delphi: businesses and the organisation responsible for the management of the area gained comments and suggestions on how to develop and improve the facilities and other services in the area, they got new ideas for their tourism services and the information gained also helped them to make decisions on what kinds of product themes customers seemed to find more interesting and are therefore worth developing.
The customers also expressed their needs and motivations in their contributions. This information could also be used in the service concept development to represent the desired experiential value and consumer service experience. The customers also suggested potential target groups for diverse service ideas.
The study showed that all the suggestions and ideas customers gave were not realisable. Hence, the businesses and developers need to have knowhow to evaluate the ideas and their profitability. For example, in this study, some of the customer ideas were very innovative and new but their actual application in practice would be difficult or may not be possible without major investments.
This study contributes also to the methodological discussion of NSD by introducing Delphi method as a customer involvement method. The study shows that customers can be regarded as experts when experiential services are
64
developed, as they know best which kind of experiences they wish to have when consuming a tourism service. The iterative nature of Delphi method also helps to gain more comprehensive information from customers and helps companies to develop the services in the direction preferred by their customers.
4.3 ARTICLE 3: CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT IN A NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: DEVELOPING THE “FEELGOOD IN LAPLAND” TOURISM OFFERING This paper takes a business perspective when the ability of a company to utilise customer involvement, benefits derived from it, and the challenges faced in the process of customer involvement in new service development (NSD) in different stages of the NSD process are examined. However, the customer motivations and willingness to participate are also discussed briefly.
The researchers drew on longitudinal action research that they undertook during their involvement in the development process between two NSD phases in which customer involvement methods were used. Hence, this case also brings forth the fact that there are multiple actors involved in the formation and development of experiential tourism services. Regarding the customer involvement methods, a narrative approach was used to collect stories for the idea generation phase of the service concept and virtual product testing surveys were utilised for the external market testing of two tourist products that were developed based on the stories gained from the narrative analysis.
The findings of this study support findings of previous studies (Chan et al., 2010; Melton and Hartline, 2010; Sigala, 2012a) by showing that successful utilisation of customer participation in NSD requires willingness, ability and commitment to this approach at all levels of the organisation, and the attitude of a company’s leaders influences the ability and interest of a company to act in a customer-‐‑oriented way. Involving the personnel of the company in the process may also reduce previously identified challenges, such as of over-‐‑customisation (Alam, 2006; Sigala, 2012a).
The study shows several practical implications that are related to customer involvement in diverse phases of NSD bringing concrete benefits for a company, such as ideas of the service concept, which are also evaluated by the customers, and detailed suggestions related to the development of the service process and service system. Thus, involving customers in the whole process provided valuable information for all components of the service. Eventually, the process led to the launch of two new tourism service products. In addition, the data collection process itself was seen as cost-‐‑effective from the business point of view when the company’s own customer base and Interned was utilised.
The case shows that the company had the willingness to involve customers in NSD but there were some challenges and other operational development
65
projects that influenced the realisation. These included, for instance, low commitment and motivation of personnel, which was partly due to limited resources, as the development activities were carried out alongside other tasks. Technical challenges also influenced the implementation of customer involvement activities, as the planned online customer panel could not be realised on time. The findings indicate that the leadership of the NSD process should be entrusted to a person who has the appropriate knowhow regarding NSD methods and approaches, and is provided with sufficient resources for the project. The challenges and problems identified during this NSD process have also been noted in previous studies (e.g. Sigala 2012a).
The findings show differences in how eager the customers were to take part in the data collection. A non-‐‑targeted e-‐‑mail in the first phase of the NSD received far fewer replies (in relation to the sample size) than the more clearly targeted one in the virtual testing. The customers seemed to be more interested in participating during the latter phase of the NSD process, when the activities were more targeted based on the customers’ profiles. It seems that the customers in the earlier phase were mainly motivated by the price offered, and later on in the process they were increasingly motivated by being able to influence the development process and help make better services corresponding to the findings of previous studies (Antikainen, 2011; Dunn and Thomas, 1994; Nambisan, 2002; Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012). Thus, it can be argued that the motivation of customers to participate may differ according to the stage of the NSD process and so it is important to target development activities at the right target groups.
It is important to pay attention to customer motivations and their experiences of the NSD process. Hence, the experiences and motivations of customers involved should be identified and examined in order to be able to design and select the most suitable customer involvement methods for different participant groups (Kaasinen et al., 2010). However, the findings also indicate that using methods other than traditional ones for customer involvement may be challenging, time-‐‑consuming and expensive for the company (Konu, 2015c) and companies may lack the knowhow to implement them. This is in line with Komppula and Lassila (2014), who state that involving customers in NSD often requires collaboration between tourism companies and universities or other research units familiar with these methods.
The customers involved in this NSD case were very interested in participating in similar activities in future, as over 90% of those who responded to the virtual testing were willing to be members of the forthcoming product development panel. The respondents also appreciated the fact that the company had activities that involved customers in development processes.
As one respondent stated, “It’s great that you listen to your customers’ wishes. I used to be a product developer for Service Plus for years and I have been pleased to see
how it changed some of the services. Sometimes you see product packages that do not
66
appeal to you at all. People need experiences and an advertisement must create the
correct associations. In the case of holidays in Lapland, in particular. After all, Lapland
is the answer for people living a hectic life in southern Finland who want to have a
relaxing holiday.” (A respondent’s reflections about the process). As this quote shows, the customers are willing to participate when they feel that their views are appreciated and will be used in developing the business. This corresponds to the findings of Antikainen’s (2011), which indicate that being able to influence the development process motivates customers to participate in development activities. 4.4 SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS 4.4.1 Experiential aspect in developing experiential tourism services Studies (Calver and Page, 2013; Prebensen, 2014) have regarded hedonism as a foundational idea for tourism basing their argument on the underlying motivations of tourists, such as relaxation and enjoyment. However, it has to be noted that tourists are also seeking intellectual aspiration and self-‐‑development during their holidays (Calver and Page, 2013; Richards and Wilson, 2006; Voigt et al., 2010). In this study, it is argued that an experiential tourism service should appeal to hedonic and/or eudaimonic motivations that leads, through involvement, to an internal and emotionally engaging experience. Hence, service providers need to identify and recognise how they can facilitate this kind of experiences. This means that it is essential to have deep customer insight regarding current and potential customers. In addition, the special characteristics of a tourism service, namely its longer duration, several encounters and the fact that it is made up of several service modules (Batat and Frochot, 2014; Komppula, 2006; Williams and Soutar, 2005), need to be taken into account together with the context and the situation when experiential tourism services are developed.
Article 1 shows that by using the ethnographic approach, deep customer insight regarding tourists’ emotions and interactions during the whole tourism product, tourists’ opinions and experiences related to the individual service modules and diverse service encounters, were gained. The findings support the framework presented by Quan and Wang (2004) by arguing that the experiential value of a tourism product is built from the sets of core and supporting experiences of the service modules included in the overall service package. In this case, the memorable experiences of the test customers emerged in different situations from which some were mediated by service providers (e.g. a tour guide) and some of them occurred in natural settings without interaction between a service provider and a consumer. Article 1 also showed that customers’ intensive involvement enabled them to gain memorable experiences.
67
In the NSD of experiential tourism services, the main focus needs to be on the service concept development which is the starting point of the whole development process (also referred to as the front-‐‑end stages of NSD by Alam, 2006). The consumer service experience comprises several elements including imaginary experiences, something expected to happen in future (see Heinonen et al., 2010; Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015; Helkkula et al., 2012). In this study (articles 2 and 3), the NSD process started from the idea generation phase and customers were asked to describe what would be their dream holiday in a wellbeing and nature tourism context. The customer narratives from their dream holidays represent their imaginary consumer service experience, including needs, wishes and motivations. These narratives were not necessarily connected to existing resources and activities of the service provider and thus gave new insights into the development process. 4.4.2 Customer involvement methods used This thesis also contributes to NSD literature by presenting practical examples of diverse NSD processes and methods used to involve customers in diverse phases of NSD, as there has been a lack of studies that show how to engage customers with NSD (Kristensson et al., 2008) and how customer involvement can contribute to NSD processes (Sigala, 2012b). Table 6 gives an overview of the customer involvement methods used in the three case articles. Some of the attributes used in the summary are drawn from previous studies (Alam, 2002; Edvardsson et al., 2012; Komppula and Lassila, 2014).
Articles 1 and 2 focus on examining two not so commonly used methods and approaches, the ethnographical approach and Delphi method, in tourism NSD. However, the empirical findings show that the methods suited well the purpose where they were used: the ethnographic approach to evaluate the functional aspects of the service process and the service system and identify what is the consumer service experience from the trip, and the Delphi method to gain new service ideas corresponding the needs and wishes of potential customers, and evaluating the service ideas. In addition, all the cases show that the utilised methods bring very rich and versatile information related to diverse service components (service concept, service process and service system) and contribute also to other phases of NSD than the ones they were originally applied. This supports the idea that the NSD process is not straight forward but includes iteration between and among the different NSD phases (Alam, 2006; Johnson et al., 2000; Menor et al., 2002).
Article 3 applied longitudinal action research and presented one NSD process from idea generation phase till commercialisation, which included using two different customer involvement methods: narrative approach and virtual product testing, in diverse phases of NSD. The findings show that this approach brought much more information and customer insight to the development process than using solely one method.
Tabl
e 6:
Sum
mar
y of
the
cust
omer
invo
lvem
ent m
etho
ds u
sed
ME
THO
DS
, A
NA
LYS
IS
AN
D E
VA
LUA
TIO
N
CR
ITE
RIA
ETH
NO
GR
AP
HIC
AP
PR
OA
CH
D
ELP
HI
NA
RR
AT
IVE
AP
PR
OA
CH
& V
IRTU
AL
PR
OD
UC
T TE
STI
NG
Dat
a co
llect
ion
met
hods
/dat
a se
ts
part
icip
ant
obse
rvat
ion,
gro
up in
terv
iew
s,
and
cust
omer
fee
dbac
k su
rvey
s
Del
phi q
uest
ionn
aire
s us
ing
eDel
phi
onlin
e to
ol
Emai
l que
stio
nnai
re,
virt
ual p
rodu
ct
test
ing
surv
eys
Dat
a an
alys
is
Ethn
ogra
phic
des
crip
tion
of t
he t
rip,
qual
itativ
e co
nten
t an
alys
is
Nar
rativ
e an
alys
is,
them
atic
ana
lysi
s N
arra
tive
anal
ysis
, qu
alita
tive
cont
ent
anal
ysis
, st
atis
tical
des
crip
tions
Purp
ose
of in
volv
emen
t To
eva
luat
e th
e fu
nctio
nal a
spec
ts o
f th
e
serv
ice
proc
ess
and
the
serv
ice
syst
em
and
iden
tify
wha
t is
the
con
sum
er s
ervi
ce
expe
rien
ce f
rom
the
tri
p
To g
ain
new
ser
vice
idea
s c
orre
spon
ding
the
need
s an
d w
ishe
s of
pot
entia
l
cust
omer
s, a
nd e
valu
atin
g th
e se
rvic
e
idea
s
To d
evel
op n
ew s
ervi
ces
unde
r a
cert
ain
them
e fr
om t
he id
ea g
ener
atio
n ph
ase
till
the
laun
ch o
f th
e ne
w s
ervi
ces
Sta
ge o
f in
volv
emen
t Ex
tern
al t
estin
g ph
ase
Idea
gen
erat
ion
and
idea
eval
uatio
n/te
stin
g ph
ases
Idea
gen
erat
ion
and
exte
rnal
pro
duct
test
ing
Inte
nsity
of
invo
lvem
ent
Hig
h M
oder
ate
Low
/Mod
erat
e
Mod
e of
cus
tom
er
invo
lvem
ent
Vis
it on
-site
and
fill
ing
ques
tionn
aire
s on
a da
ily b
asis
, gr
oup
inte
rvie
ws
Del
phi r
ound
s N
arra
tive
stor
ies,
vir
tual
pro
duct
tes
ting
Str
engt
hs o
f da
ta
colle
ctio
n
Ric
h an
d de
ep in
form
atio
n re
late
d to
all
serv
ice
com
pone
nts,
insi
ght
from
cons
umer
s’ e
mot
iona
l res
pons
es
New
idea
s an
d op
inio
ns,
sam
e pe
ople
eval
uatin
g id
eas
New
idea
s, p
ossi
bilit
y re
ach
a la
rge
num
ber
of r
espo
nden
ts,
larg
e sa
mpl
e
size
s es
peci
ally
at
the
latt
er p
art
of t
he
proc
ess,
tar
gete
d ac
tiviti
es
Cha
lleng
es o
f da
ta
colle
ctio
n
Find
ing
righ
t ta
rget
gro
up a
nd is
sues
rela
ted
to t
hat
(e.g
. la
ngua
ge is
sues
);
inte
nsiv
e da
ta c
olle
ctio
n an
d re
port
ing;
time
cons
umin
g
Find
ing
the
righ
t pa
nelli
sts
and
mot
ivat
ing
them
to a
nsw
er t
he q
uest
ionn
aire
s;
guar
ante
eing
ano
nym
ity;
time
cons
umin
g
Cha
lleng
es t
hat
may
occ
ur w
ith o
ver-
relia
nce
on t
he e
xist
ing
cust
omer
base
68
anal
ysis
co
mpl
emen
t ea
ch o
ther
or
they
may
be
very
diff
eren
t, r
equi
res
expe
rtis
e,
pres
entin
g th
e re
sults
in a
way
tha
t th
ey
supp
ort
the
deci
sion
mak
ing
in N
SD
proc
ess
pres
entin
g th
e re
sults
in a
way
tha
t th
ey
supp
ort
the
deci
sion
mak
ing
in N
SD
proc
ess
anal
ysis
tim
e co
nsum
ing,
pre
sent
ing
the
resu
lts in
a w
ay t
hat
they
sup
port
the
deci
sion
mak
ing
in N
SD
pro
cess
Num
ber
and
expe
rtis
e of
pers
onne
l
Labo
ur in
tens
ive:
tra
ined
per
sonn
el
need
ed
Labo
ur in
tens
ive:
tra
ined
per
sonn
el
need
ed
Labo
ur in
tens
ive
whe
n qu
alita
tive
data
is
anal
ysed
; tr
aine
d pe
rson
nel n
eede
d
Cos
ts
Hig
h co
sts;
labo
ur in
tens
ive
in d
ata
colle
ctio
n an
d an
alys
ing
qual
itativ
e da
ta
Rea
sona
ble
cost
, es
peci
ally
whe
n
impl
emen
ted
by u
sing
onl
ine
chan
nels
Dat
a co
llect
ion
and
quan
titat
ive
anal
yses
cost
eff
ectiv
e, q
ualit
ativ
e an
alys
es b
ring
cost
s hi
gher
Info
rmat
ion
that
is
usef
ul e
spec
ially
in
expe
rien
tial s
ervi
ce
deve
lopm
ent
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69
70
4.4.3 Issues influencing utilisation of customer involvement in tourism NSD The findings of this study show that the expected benefits and challenges influenced the willingness of businesses and customers to be part of tourism NSD processes. The findings of article 3 brought forth that to be able to utilise customer involvement successfully requires willingness, commitment and ability at all levels of an organisation. The developers should also be able to motivate and commit customers to the process.
Customer involvement in NSD brought several concrete benefits for businesses in all three NSD cases, such as ideas of the service concept (reflecting the needs and motivations of the consumers), customer evaluations about the service components and service ideas, and detailed suggestions related to the development of service process and service system. This supports the notions made by Alam and Perry (2002) and Magnusson et al. (2003) that requiring deep customer insight and developing new services in collaboration with customers enable businesses to better match consumers’ needs.
From the business perspective, identified challenges can be divided into two groups: challenges related to organising and implementing customer involvement in NSD, and challenges related to the outcomes from the process. The challenges related to the organisational aspect were mainly connected to the resources of the tourism businesses developing the services. These included lack of knowhow of customer involvement methods and their application, lack of time and money, low motivation of the personnel to complete the process, challenge to find right customers and motivate them to participate. Challenges that were connected to the outcome of using diverse customer involvement methods were the analyses of diverse customer data, the challenge to identify the right ideas and act based on them, as all of them were not realisable.
The costs and allocating resources for NSD may be challenging especially for SMEs. In articles 1 and 2, the NSD activities took place in networks that consisted of diverse actors such as tourism businesses, university, local DMOs and other organisations. The networking took place in order to develop services under a certain theme or for some particular area. It was recognised that individual businesses did not have the resources or knowhow to implement the activities alone and that networking was seen as an efficient way to divide costs. In some cases, additional resources may be gained by networking. This was realised in case 1 in which the network received external funding for development purposes.
The findings of this study revealed that customers were interested in and willing to participate in diverse development activities in different phases of NSD processes. For instance, in article 1 the test customers invested their money to take part in the forest wellbeing trip, and in articles 2 and 3 customers were willing to invest their time in discussions, as well as giving comments and feedback. In all of the cases the topic or the content of the experiential tourism
71
service under development was seen to be appealing or important by the participants, e.g. the test customers in article 1 were highly interested in Finland, forests, nature activities and wellbeing, in article 2 the participants replied to open call for product development of tourism services of one particular area and in article 3 the customers involved were existing customers of the businesses, some of who had an emotional connection to Lapland. However, it was evident that some customers were mainly motivated by the possibility of winning a prize corresponding to findings of previous studies (Antikainen, 2011; Bronner and de Hoog, 2011; Lusch et al., 2007) that have identified similar motivations. It can be argued that the motivations and expected benefits of customers in experiential
tourism service development may be connected to the service process, and to the
emotional connections to the context and situation of the service.
72
5 Conclusions and discussion
5.1 THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION The purpose of the thesis was to increase understanding about customer involvement in new experiential tourism service development, by discussing customer involvement and consumer service experience in the NSD process of experiential services, and examining the contribution and usefulness of diverse methods utilised new experiential service development.
To be able to discuss experiential services, the concept needed to be first defined. This thesis contributes to the service marketing and management literature by providing following definition for experiential services: An experiential service is an economic activity in which a service provider provides
prerequisites that enable a consumer, through involvement, to experience something that
is internal and emotionally engaging or affective and appeals to consumer’s hedonic
and/or eudaimonic motivations, leading to experiential value. Figure 5 presents the consumer and business perspectives of an experiential service in more detail.
Figure 5: Consumer and business perspectives of an experiential service
Consumer perspective
Business perspective
Service
environment:
physical environment,
atmosphere, other
customers
Service system:
internal and external
resources, image,
hospitality, business
mission
Consumer
process:
involvement in
service experience
co-creation
Service process:
modules,
blueprints,
interactions,
encounters
Experiential
value:
corresponds
customer needs,
motivations
Service concept:
Value proposition
for a consumer
EXP
ERIE
NTI
AL
SE
RV
ICE
CONSUMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE
PREREQUISITES
73
From the consumer perspective the core of an experiential service is the experiential value consumer experiences when consuming the service. The experiential value may include diverse consumption values (Sheth, Newman and Gross, 1991) and it can afford both intrinsic and extrinsic benefits (Mathwick et al., 2001). This is the subjectively evaluated outcome that emerges and comes through the consumption process, and it is affected by a consumer’s emotions, feelings and personal characteristics. From the business perspective, the core of the experiential service is the service concept that includes the value propositions.
A consumer process is connected to a service process, which from a business perspective includes different sets of encounters, interactions and service modules. The consumer is involved in the service experience co-‐‑creation that is facilitated by the service provider. The service environment includes e.g. the physical environment in which the service takes place, atmosphere and also other customers that influence the consumer service experience. From the business perspective, the service system includes also the physical plant, but also other internal and external resources and intangible components such as image.
Studies of NSD in diverse service sectors, such as financial and technological services (Alam, 2002; Alam and Perry, 2002; Alam, 2006), focus more or less on developing a well-‐‑functioning service process, which is regarded as the goal of NSD (Tatikonda and Zeithaml, 2002). However, these studies focus mainly on providing the functional value for the customer during the service process. Although the term experiential service has become more visible in service marketing and management literature during the last ten years, it is surprising how little these services have been examined in the field. This study argues that in experiential service development, the development activities need to start with the identification of the customer needs and motivations that eventually may lead to experiential value with the help of prerequisites service providers offer to facilitate the experience formation. From the business perspective, to be able to develop new experiential services the starting point and the main focus should to be on the service concept development. Because of the specific characteristics of the experiential services (e.g. intensive involvement, emotionally
engaging), this study claims that it is highly important to involve customers to the
development processes of experiential services, especially when the service concept (what
kind of experiential value the service aims to give for a consumer) is developed.
It is argued that marketing scholarship has largely ignored qualitative methods and approaches such as narratives and ethnography in market learning and strategy formulation (Cayla and Arnould, 2013). Even if it is recognised that diverse organisations increasingly use ethnographic approaches in new product design and to get better understanding of new markets (Bezaitis, 2009; Cayla and Arnould, 2013), there is still a lack of knowledge on how companies use ethnography and other qualitative methods to build market knowledge. In this
74
study, different qualitative customer involvement methods are analytically examined in tourism business context. This study shows that the qualitative methods used in tourism NSD processes gave deeper insight about consumers’ service experiences and consumer behaviour than statistical measures which usually fail to bring forth the complexities of human experience (Cayla and Arnould, 2013; Palmer, 2010). This kind of customer insight is especially important when experiential services are developed.
In this study, the use of phenomenological and ethnographic methods and approaches made it possible to gain a deeper understanding of consumer wishes and needs, and the methods and approaches applied helped to identify emotional responses of customers which correspond to the service concept under development (article 1). The experiential aspects of the tourism services became evident from the narratives in articles 2 and 3, and during the participant observation (article 1). Using qualitative methods enables to gain deeper customer insight and help businesses to understand consumer service experience in the
real context. It can be argued that this kind of information would be almost impossible to
gain using traditional quantitative methods.
5.2 MANAGERIAL CONTRIBUTION This study answers the call made by various authors (Helkkula et al., 2012; Hjalager and Nordin, 2011; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2011) who have stated the need to study tourism services, experiential services and service experiences by using diverse, more phenomenological and emphatic methods and approaches. To do this, contributions of different consumer involvement methods in NSD processes of experiential tourism services were discussed in three different case studies (articles 1, 2 and 3), which all have diverse research approaches and methods, namely the ethnographic approach, Delphi method and longitudinal action research. All the individual empirical cases brought several managerial contributions for the particular tourism NSD processes, and they provided further information for tourism development activities that was called for by Tuohino (2012) and VisitFinland (2013).
Studies have shown (Anderson, 2009; Cayla and Arnould, 2013) that qualitative methods such as ethnography have been successfully used in big companies to explain consumer actions. This study shows that also SMEs can utilise and benefit from qualitative methods for instance collaborating with research units. The collaboration profits those businesses that do not necessarily have product and service development units.
Several studies emphasise the online tools in NSD processes (e.g. Hoyer et al., 2010; Pitta and Fowler, 2005; Sigala, 2012b). Articles 2 and 3 showed that different online tools can be used efficiently in NSD purposes. In articles 1 and 3 customers were involved in the testing phase of NSD – offline in article 1 and
75
online in article 3. The results show that the information gained offline during the visit on-‐‑site provided much deeper information particularly in relation to customers’ emotional responses, but on the other hand, the online testing in article 3 brought more information related to the service process and e.g. related to practical issues such as prize. However, in articles 2 and 3 the online collection of customer narratives to develop service concept was efficient and brought information about the needs and wishes of customers and thus give a very good starting point for experiential service concept development. This study argues that the selection between online and offline NSD activities need to be carefully
evaluated based on the goals of the whole NSD process and the diverse stages of the NSD
process. The findings showed several issues that influence customer involvement in
experiential service development both from the business and consumer perspectives. It is also important to note that when customers are involved in NSD processes they will have an experience from the development process itself.
Previous studies have found that it might be challenging to get customers to participate the NSD activities. The empirical findings of all the three case articles showed that customers were willing to take part in diverse development activities and also invest their resources, such as time, effort and/or money, for it, which corresponded to the findings of Prebensen et al. (2013). The findings also indicate that customers appreciated that their opinions and input were sought during the development process. However, the customers were more willing to participate when they felt that the developed services were targeted at them. Hence, the service developers should plan their development processes in a way that enables targeting development activities at the right target groups. The findings of article 3 support the notion of Sjödin and Kristensson (2012) that customers’ willingness to participate in the NSD process is higher if it is seen to provide positive experiences. Hence, service developers need to find the correct methods and ways to enhance the customer involvement and provide positive experiences already during the NSD process.
In the findings of this study, several concrete benefits and challenges of customer involvement were identified. To implement the NSD process successfully, businesses need to clearly set a goal for the development activities and recognise the
possible risks and challenges related to it. In table 7, there is listed the challenges identified in this study, including some suggestions how these challenges could be tackled.
76
Table 7: Identified challenges of customer involvement Challenges Suggested solutions
Lack of knowhow about
customer involvement methods
Collaboration with research units familiar with the
methods and their implementation
Lack of resources, e.g. time and
money
Collaboration with other businesses or organisations to
share costs and responsibilities
Low motivation of personnel Personnel (or the person in charge) should be provided
sufficient resources to realise the development
activities
Finding right customers to
participate
Targeting the development activities to particular
target groups depending on the goal of the
development process; utilisation of existing customer
base; using diverse online channels to identify
potential customers and contributors
Motivating customers to
participate the NSD
Recognise that customers may have different
motivations to participate in diverse phases of the
development process and act based on this information
Different levels of customer
knowhow
Evaluate what kind of contributions are expected from
the customers and choosing the participants based on
that
Utilisation and prioritisation of
customers’ ideas
Evaluation of the ideas by customers themselves, by
front-line employees, by other staff of the company,
and/or by other actors involved
To conclude, the empirical findings suggest that involving customers in various ways in service development may provide versatile practical development ideas and suggestions as well as deep customer insight. Hence, it is highly recommended that even small businesses can utilise customer involvement, especially by networking e.g. with other businesses, universities or other research units and members of distribution channels. 5.3 EVALUATION OF THE STUDY AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The evaluation of qualitative research is usually done by evaluating trustworthiness (Creswell, 2014; Decrop, 2004; Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Diverse criteria have been used in evaluating the
77
trustworthiness and the most applied are four criteria for qualitative inquiry developed by Lincoln and Guba (1985), namely credibility (how truthful findings are), transferability (the extent to which the research findings are applicable in different settings), dependability (how consistent and reproducible the findings are), and confirmability (how neutral findings are). In addition to these criteria triangulation is seen to enhance trustworthiness by limiting personal and methodological biases (Decrop, 2004).
The four criteria by Denzin and Guba (1985) were considered as part of the research design of the thesis and they acted as the guiding principle during the research process. In this study different techniques were used to increase trustworthiness. In the case studies, detailed and contextual information about the cases was provided to support data analysis and interpretation, as well as to add credibility. However, the most important technique used to add trustworthiness was triangulation. In the individual cases, data triangulation (using multiple datasets, applied in article 1), investigator triangulation (using different researcher to look same body of data, applied in article 3), informant triangulation (including a broad range of informants and comparing what they say, applied in article 3), longitudinal triangulation (involving the same people to the process at different points of time, applied in article 2) were used (see Decrop, 2004). In addition, in all the individual cases the interpretations of the researcher were also discussed and checked with the informants. The dependability and confirmability of the individual case studies were assessed by the external reviewers of the scientific journals. Using just a single method in a study may be problematic as it may result in selective perception (Decrop, 2004). Hence, in this study method triangulation was applied to enhance the credibility of the findings.
This study also has limitations. One aim of the study was to examine and test customer involvement methods in experiential service development. This study includes only a limited number of methods that can be used to develop experiential services. Nevertheless, the methods examined bring an overview of different approaches that are recommended for use in experiential service development and in the examination of service experiences. However, future studies should examine the applicability and contribution of other approaches and methods, too.
This study does not compare the suitability of different methods in NSD of experiential services, because all of the methods and approaches were used in different cases. To be able to compare the suitability and information provided by diverse methods in detail, they should be applied in the same NSD process and by involving the same customers. In practice this would very difficult as the results may be influenced by the fact that the customers will be more experienced about the process and the service if they are involved in developing the same service over and over again. Again, it might be very difficult to engage customers in these kinds of activities.
78
Previous studies have also noted that the customer perspective in NSD has received much less attention than the business perspective (Sjödin and Kristensson, 2012). These studies call for research that focuses, for example, on how a customer benefits from involvement. In the results, it is argued that in experiential tourism service development the motivations and expected benefits of a customer may be connected to the service process, but also to the emotional connections to the context, for instance referring to certain tourism destination, and situation, such as consumption of a certain wellbeing tourism service. The future research should focus on how customers experience the NSD processes of experiential services as such, as the emotional engagement of these kinds of services may be higher compared to other services. In addition, future research could also examine how important a role the emotional connections play and how this connection could be utilised to motivate and engage consumers into development processes.
79
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Articles
DEVELOPING A FOREST-BASED WELLBEING TOURISM PRODUCT TOGETHER WITH CUSTOMERS – AN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH Konu, H. (2015). Developing a forest-‐‑based wellbeing tourism product together with customers – an ethnographic approach. Tourism Management, 49(August 2015), 1-‐‑16. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.02.006. DEVELOPING NATURE-BASED TOURISM PRODUCTS WITH CUSTOMERS BY UTILIZING THE DELPHI METHOD Konu, H. (2015). Developing nature-‐‑based tourism products with customers by utilizing the Delphi method. Tourism Management Perspectives, 14(April 2015), 42-‐‑54. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2015.03.003 CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT IN A NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: DEVELOPING THE “FEELGOOD IN LAPLAND” TOURISM OFFERING Konu, H. and Komppula, R. (2016). Customer involvement in a new service development process: Developing the “Feelgood in Lapland” tourism offering. ANATOLIA -‐‑ An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, published online 16 Feb 2016, doi:10.1080/13032917.2016.1144625.
Article 1
DEVELOPING A FOREST-BASED WELLBEING TOURISM PRODUCT TOGETHER WITH CUSTOMERS – AN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH Konu, H. (2015). Developing a forest-‐‑based wellbeing tourism product together with customers – an ethnographic approach. Tourism Management, 49(August 2015), 1-‐‑16. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.02.006. Reprinted with kind permission from Elsevier.
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Tourism Management 49 (2015) 1e16
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eveloping a forest-based wellbeing tourism product together with
Tourism Management
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ustomers e An ethnographic approach
enna Konu*
iversity of Eastern Finland, Centre for Tourism Studies, P.O. Box 86, FI-57101 Savonlinna, Finland
i g h l i g h t s
Ethnography suits well in the external testing phase of tourism NSD.Ethnographic approach brings versatile information for the purpose of NSD.
servicecustome
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Gained information benefits the development ofThe customer involvement in NSD benefits both
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ticle history:ceived 24 July 2014cepted 7 February 2015ailable online
ywords:hnographic approachw service development
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E-mail address: [email protected].
tp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2015.02.00661-5177/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
concept, process and system.rs and suppliers.
a c t
aims to examine the usability and usefulness of ethnographic approaches in new servicent (NSD) in tourism. This paper discusses and describes what kind of information is gainede process. The paper includes a case study which uses an ethnographic approach in one phaseprocess. The data was collected during a tourism product test phase on-site by participant, conducting surveys and holding group interviews. The results show that an ethnographicrings highly versatile and detailed information that benefits different phases of NSD and thent of the service concept, service process and service system. Some challenges were identifieddata collection, mainly related to participant observation. This study contributes to tourismnt literature by providing an empirical example of how consumers are involved in NSD in theustry and how an ethnographic approach can be utilised in NSD.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Introduction
In recent studies, the role of the customer has been highlightedproduct and service development processes. Service-dominantgic (e.g. Vargo & Lusch, 2004) and service logic (e.g. Gr€onroos,06, 2008, 2011) emphasise customer interaction with suppliersring e.g. product design, production and consumption (e.g.yne, Storbacka, Frow, & Knox, 2009). Services occur when cus-mers and service suppliers interact, which emphasises the cen-al role of the customer in services. This interaction and dialoguetween a customer and a service provider is often described as co-eation or co-production (e.g. Payne et al., 2009; Prahalad &maswamy, 2004; Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2006) and the customerseen as a co-producer of a service, as well as a co-creator of valuer€onroos, 2007; Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2006). One of the reasons
for discussiseen to beservices (Sj
It is statdustry areexamples oindustries,tions. Expebenefits reZomerdijk,riential valexperience.rience of thresearch inproducts an2013).
Thoughroles co-creTel.: þ358 50 343 7087.
opment and ne importance of customer involvement is that it isffective strategy for improving the success of new& Kristensson, 2012).
hat the products of the hospitality and tourism in-ays experiential (Williams, 2006) and thus manyse services come from the context of “experience”as restaurants, theme parks, and tourist destina-
tial services do not solely focus on the utilitarianng from the products/services delivered (Voss &7; Zomerdijk & Voss, 2011) but more on the expe-a consumer obtains from the consumer servicen though the core product of tourism is the expe-nsumer, it is interesting to note how limited theow customers are involved in developing tourismervices is at present (Prebensen, Vittersø, & Dahl,
e studies have recently focused on examining then and customer involvement play in service devel-ew service development (NSD) in tourism (e.g.
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hathoth, Altinay, Harrington, Okumusd, & Chan, 2013; Prebensent al., 2013) there is still a lack of (especially empirical) studies thatcus on the innovative activities and e.g. modes of customervolvement in the tourism and hospitality sector (Hjalager, 2010;omppula & Lassila, 2014). In addition, Hjalager and Nordin2011) have stated that future research in tourism innovationhould concentrate on examining user-driven innovation methodsnd practices. A number of studies have outlined methods that areuitable for acquiring customer information (e.g. Alam, 2002;agrosen, 2005; von Hippel, 1986), from which some methods areeen as being suitable for particular phases of the developmentrocess and others are seen as being appropriate for the gatheringf customer information throughout the entire process (vonoskull & Foug�ere, 2011). However, according to Nijssen andieshout (1995, cited in von Koskull & Foug�ere, 2011), there is lit-le information available concerning the extent and the way inhich customer information is actually collected in real cases ofervice development praxis. This study aims to fill this gap byxamining one case of customer involvement in tourism NSD.Several authors (e.g. Edvardsson, Kristensson, Magnusson, &
undstr€om, 2012; Ryan, 2010) encourage researchers to tend to-ards using qualitative methods and approaches that are bothterpretative and interactive in order to gain more comprehensiveformation about the phenomenon under investigation. Ethno-raphic approaches have quite often been applied in tourismesearch, especially when examining travel/service experiencesBarbieri, Almeida Santos, & Katsube, 2012; Coghlan & Filo, 2013;omppula & Gartner, 2013; Muskat, Muskat, Zehrer, & Johns,013; Prebensen & Foss, 2011), tourist motivations (Buckley,012), tourists as co-producers and in co-constructing experi-nces (Larsen & Meged, 2013; Tumbat, 2011), the meanings ofertain sightseeing places or environments (Mordue, 2005;antala, 2011) and the experiences and emotions of tourists andourism service personnel (HougeMackenzie& Kerr, 2013; Tumbat,011). Even though several ethnographic studies have been con-ucted in relation to tourism, many have not examined theirndings from an ethnographic perspective or have applied anthnographic research approach in a service development context.omppula and Lassila (2014) studied ethnography as a means forcussing on customer involvement and they found that valuableformation was gained in relation to customers' motivations,references and wishes that could be used for service developmenturposes. However, there is still a need to obtain more detailedformation about how an ethnographic approach can be appliednd to subsequently evaluate its potential contribution to tourismSD.This study is part of a wider tourism development project
iming to develop forest-based wellbeing tourism products. Thetudy focuses on a tourism product development process that aimso develop forest-based wellbeing tourism products through thevolvement of potential customers. In this case, the study focusesn examining the development process with one of the potentialarget groups e Japanese tourists. The initial idea for a project toevelop a forest-based tourism product for Japanese tourists cameom a Japanese medical doctor who had previously visited theegion. In 2013, Japanese tourists were the sixth biggest foreignustomer group in Finland (FTB, 2014c), being the largest group ofisitors who came from outside of Europe. Compared to the pre-ious year, overnight stays by visitors from Japan increased by 16.4ercent (FTB, 2014c). The preconceptions that the Japanese havebout Finland are connected to the Aurora Borealis, the Moominscartoon characters), nature (e.g. natural scenery, the naturalnvironment, snow, the cold, forests, lakes, berry-picking), Santalaus and Christmas, as well as Nordic design (e.g. furniture,andicrafts, ornaments, souvenir, Iittala, Arabia, Marimekko) (FTB,
2014a). Thare the Aurlisted in thsnow and fthese theJapanese tarelated to t
The papconcentrateprocess e estudy is toature by pinvolved inexamine thin tourismmation is gthe approa
The papby a theoreinvolvemenhow ethnomove to dethe data coof the meththe ethnogdata and mmaterial anthe ethnogrelevant finimplication
2. Involvin
In touriderives frodestinationconsumer iand a servifor servicesstarting poiservice conwhat kind o2006; Konucludes theprocess th(Komppulaconcept, alpany's persuppliers asystem comcess for reae.g. the inteboth the seand the sedestination(e.g. KompHuijbens, 2system areproduct (Ko
Konu etand appliedfor serviceconcept dtesting, comvice concep
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015)
p three main interests of the Japanese in FinlandBorealis, the midnight sun and food. However, alsop ten are other Finnish natural assets such as lakes,ts (FTB, 2014a). As Japanese visitors show interest inral resources, an increase in the offering for thet group and the provision of new kinds of servicesorest and nature were suggested.escribes the whole NSD process of the case, but itn examining one phase of new service developmentnal market testing e in more detail. The aim of thise a contribution to the tourism management liter-ding an empirical example of how consumers arein the tourism industry. The more precise goal is toability and usefulness of an ethnographic approachby discussing and describing what kind of infor-
d through the process, and what kinds of challengesas.structured as follows: This introduction is followedl section in which I focus on examining customerNSD and ethnography as an approach/method, andhy is used in business and tourism studies. I thene the context and the study case. This is followed byed during the course of the study, and a descriptionwhich includes a presentation on how I conductedic research in this case. In the section following theod study, I present my findings from the empiricaling forth issues that were connected to the usage ofic approach. In the conclusion, I discuss the most
gs and put forward some theoretical and managerial
ustomers in new service development
the overall experience and the value for customerervices they consume at particular facilities or at averal authors have pointed out that value for anerated in the service process (e.g. Gr€onroos, 2006)ompany can provide the prerequisites and settingsexperiences (e.g. Edvardsson & Olsson, 1996). The
or new tourism service development needs to be thet (the core of a tourist product), which expressesperiences and value the customer seeks (Komppula,ohino, & Komppula, 2010). The service process in-ious service modules and steps of the customergh which the customer consumes the services06; Komppula & Lassila, 2014). To realise the serviceakeholders, namely consumers, the service com-el, technical and physical environments and theed to be involved in the service process. The serviceses all of the resources available to the service pro-g the service concept (Edvardsson & Olsson, 1996),l and external resources of a service provider. Hence,e process (including the services and interaction)system (including e.g. external resources such as
ources) influence the experience the customer hasa & Boxberg, 2002; Tuohino, Konu, Hjalager, &). The service concept, service process and servicen as prerequisites for a customer-orientated touristpula, 2006).(2010) have adapted several NPD and NSD theoriesem to the tourist product context. Their frameworkem development includes five main phases: serviceopment, service process development, marketrcialisation and post-introduction evaluation. Ser-velopment includes phases of idea generation, core
6
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oduct screening, concept testing and concept development. Theases of service process development arrive from service moduleeation and development, service blueprinting, (internal) proto-pe testing, business analysis and formal product blueprinting.arket testing includes external testing and financial evaluation,d is followed by commercialisation and post-introductionaluation.Customers can be involved in product and service developmentring the early stages of the innovation process, e.g. by tappingto their tacit knowledge (see also Alam, 2006; Prahalad & Santos,09), but previous studies have shown that customers are mostlyvolved in the later stages of the innovation process, for examplehen testing a product that is almost ready for sale and marketingrahalad & Santos, 2009). It is emphasised that customers shouldinvolved in the whole new service development process as it
ay have a positive influence (e.g. Alam & Perry, 2002). Manyudies have examined the phases of NSD, but there is a lack ofsearch that brings forth detailed descriptions of the externalsting of services (Meiren & Burger, 2009). Some studies haveted the aims and goals of the testing phase as including the ex-ination of the suitability for markets, evaluation of the benefits
r customers and whether the needs of customers are met, andecking the functionality of the service process (e.g. Kinnunen,04; Nicolajsen & Scupola, 2011). Challenges in testing new ser-ces arise from the intangible nature of services (existing only ine moment of its delivery to a customer) and the fact that servicese usually tailored to individual buyers or customers at the point ofrchase (Thomke, 2003). For these reasons, services are difficult tost in laboratories and they cannot be tested through large sampleseiren & Burger, 2009; Thomke, 2003). This, in addition to e.g.sts, has led to a situationwhere businesses skip testing phases forrvices (Meiren& Burger, 2009; Thomke, 2003), which can lead tooblems such as new service failures. Probably due to theseallenges, there is a lack of studies that have focused on theternal testing phase of NSD or have mentioned how the product/rvice testing data is gathered, reported and utilised, and whatnd of information is gathered.Edvardsson, Gustafsson, Kristensson, Magnusson, and Matthing
006) talk about two types of customer involvement. In the firstpe of customer (user) involvement, the aim is to learnmore aboutstomers (e.g. gathering articulated and latent needs, values andeferences). The idea of this type of involvement is to understandstomer needs and desires to be able to recognise what createslue for them. It can be argued that this is type of involvement isactised in many development processes (see e.g. von Koskull &ug�ere, 2011). The aim in the second type of involvement is tovolve customers as innovators or co-creators by using diverse ando-active techniques. This comprises e.g. idea creation andsessment, and creating new services to meet identified needs.jalager's and Nordin's (2011) typology of user-driven innovationso supports this kind of division of the customers' roles. Accord-g to them, a customer may play an active or passive role in NSD,d this depends on the level of interaction in the NSD. The per-nal relevance of the concept or service under development for astomer also influences the level of involvement with an object,tuation or action (Prebensen et al., 2013). In a tourism context,urists spend time, money and effort on travelling during theirlidays because they want to (Prebensen et al., 2013) and it isgued that people who are willing to invest their own resources inmething that they both like and desire are liable to engage in co-oduction (Etgar, 2008). Thus, it can also be argued that customersho are actively involved may also invest their own resources ifey feel that the end result would be an eventual increase in thelue they receive, or that they find the developed service/conceptrsonally relevant and important.
It is sugducted live,2003). In selivery procPerry, 2002cited in Mmethods thtests (verifdocumentatests (testinsources orsources), anservices area practicalmarket is epotential cu
Both quacustomersthrough thstudies havinvolvemenand Nordininnovationways to invvation can btypology isthe issue fropeople whoconsideringnature of t2011). Theapproachesnurturing c
Tappingand analysiproduct ratserve as a pand are suiinformatione.g. when ocludes metterviews, fopanels, andof people iinformationmore detaidetailed infences of cerof user comdevelopmepeople and(Hjalager &and encourcertain proactivities sution campsnumber of2011). Thescustomersprocess.
Edvardscustomer isituation (aor outside osituations h
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015)
ed that the testing of new services should be con-h real customers, and in real transactions (Thomke,e testing, customers participate in the service de-s and they may suggest improvements (Alam &sed on their experiences. Meiren and Barth (2002,n & Burger, 2009, pp. 623e624) discuss threeave been used in service testing, namely conceptualthe consistency and plausibility of the service
; rarely carried out with real customers), usability.g. the user friendliness of the new operative re-lems if the customers cannot handle the new re-actical tests (testing new services in a pilot market;red to a limited number of customers). In this study,that aims to investigate new services in a pilot
loyed in order to study real interaction with realers.
tive and quantitative methods are used in NSD andinvolved in the information acquisition processpplication of varying approaches. Relatively fewied to map and categorise the different customerethods used in new service development. Hjalager011) have developed a typology of user-drivend in the tourism industry that includes differentusers in an innovation process. User-driven inno-en as a part of customer involvement and thus theapplicable in this context. The typology approacheswo perspectives: first, by considering the number ofe part in the innovation process and second, byassumptions being made about the people and thecontribution to the process (Hjalager & Nordin,logy includes four different user-driven innovationamely tapping data, interpreting information,ivity, and experimenting and testing.a includes customer surveys, complaint collectionalysis of guest and visitor books, blog mining and. Thesemethods involve large numbers of users whove source of information (Hjalager & Nordin, 2011)e when it is important to gather large amounts ofany of these methods are also fairly cost effective,e surveys are used. Information interpretation in-such as customer interviews, critical incident in-groups, observations of consumer behaviour, useries. These processes involve only a limited numbere process and people are still passive suppliers ofjalager & Nordin, 2011). These methods can bringinsight to a number of use situations and moreation can be gleaned about the customer experi-services. Nurturing creativity includes the researchities, and making open calls for product or servicend configuration. These methods include severaling the process people act as active co-developersrdin, 2011). These methods are more interactivea customer to contribute e.g. to discussions abouts and services. Experimenting and testing includeas the research of lead-user communities, innova-production and toolkits, involving only a limitedple as active co-developers (Hjalager & Nordin,ethods normally support high interaction betweenthe service providers throughout the whole NSD
t al. (2012) have a different approach for examiningvement in service development. They utilise useomer can provide information either inside (in situ)e use situation (ex situ)) and resource contexts (allen either in-context or ex-context) to elaborate four
3
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ifferent service-related customer conditions. Following thishought Edvardsson et al. (2012) developed four ideal types ofustomers as sources of information: the correspondent who hasxperience in real service contexts and situations, the reflectiveractitioner who has experience of the service context that is notonnected to real-life situations, the tester who has learned theervice context from outside and is testing a simulated real-lifeituation, and the dreamer who has not been a part of the real-fe value-creating situation and has learned the context from theutside. Edvardsson et al. (2012) categorised a number of methodshat can be used to gain information from customers that haveifferent experiences of both the situation and the context inwhichhe service is developed. They put forward four different qualities ofethods by evaluating the type of information collected, innova-
ion knowledge, the degree of interactivity, reporting and needsentification. These qualities are also used in this study in thevaluation of the ethnographic approach in NSD.
. Ethnography in business and tourism studies
Ethnography is commonly used when cultural systems andeanings are studied (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008; Goulding,005). Consumption is part of culture and ethnography is utilisedstudying the social meanings of consumption and ownership
Goulding, 2005). Traditionally, the goal of an ethnographic study iso understand reality by focussing on ordinary experiences and theveryday life of people (Holloway, Brown, & Shipway, 2010). Theim of ethnography is to get first-hand experience and exploreertain social or cultural settings by using mainly participantbservation (Atkinson, Coffey, Delamont, Lofland, & Lofland, 2007).ccording to Hammersley (1992) ethnographic research is char-cterised by distinctive features. These are the study of one or amall number of cases usually over a lengthy period of time (e.g.ays or years), adopting awide initial focus at the outset of researchnot just testing narrowly defined hypotheses), using a range ofypes of data (e.g. observational and/or interview data, documents,tatistics, questionnaire data), using minimal pre-structuring of theata (focus on detailed field notes, additionally using audio andideo data), and analysing the data by using verbal descriptions andxplanations (Hammersley, 1992, cited in Churton & Brown, 2010,. 282).In qualitative research, a commonly applied paradigm or
orldview is constructivism (Creswell, 2014; Lincoln, Lynham, &uba, 2011) which adopts a relativist sort of ontology, meaninghat it is recognised thatmultiple realities exist and people constrictnowledge through lived experiences and interactions with others.ence a researcher must take part in the research process with theesearch subjects to ensure that the knowledge produced reflectsheir reality (Lincoln et al., 2011). Documenting multiple perspec-ives of reality helps to understand why people act and think inifferent ways (Fetterman, 2010). In ethnographic research, aesearcher can interpret information about a research subject fromwo different perspectives. First, (s)he can describe and bring forthsues and things as they have observed and experienced thememic perspective/insider's view), and second, they may interpretsues and things and highlight different meanings (etic perspec-ive/outsider views) (Eriksson&Kovalainen, 2008; Goulding, 2005).
the emic perspective, multiple realities are recognised andccepted (Fetterman, 2010). Boyle (1994) suggests that most eth-ographies combine elements of both emic and etic analysis andhat the emphasis usually varies according to the philosophy of theesearcher. Today, it is common that many ethnographers start theata collection from the emic perspective and then try to makeense of the collected data in terms of the native's view and alsoheir own scientific analysis (etic perspective) (Fetterman, 2010).
Ethnogrconsumer rthe goals othings, sucmarket andfrom a conraphy has(Arnould, 1& Stamey,(Schoutenconsumptiocludes studresearch e
by Erikssonon “how peto-day acti139). Ethnoand manaGramling eto answerKozinets, 2
The focapproach isdevelopingethnographCoghlan && Gartner,et al., 2013do not intencan be adaservices. Caeating-outestablishmronmentsservice proin the hospPrice's (199services. Thextraordinavice encououtcomes.related to h(e.g. role oftourism secvations andvice managinformationHowever, tusing ethno
To my kethnographand Foug�erusing an eamines theThey discocustomer iactual andKomppulainvolvemenby using thpossible totourism buamounts orestrict theand Ryyn
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015)
y has been used to some extent in marketing andarch. According to Arnould and Wallendorf (1994),nographic marketing research can focus on variousunderstanding the work of people constituting amining the cultural meanings of marketing outputser's perspective. To give a few examples, ethnog-n used to study consumption in different cultures), consumption of particular groups of peoples (Hill0; Pe~naloza, 1994), the subculture of consumptioncAlexander, 1995), and to identify a typology ofxperience (Holt, 1995). Business research also in-that can be categorised under a specific field ofanisational ethnography’ (Schwartzman, 1993, citedovalainen, 2008, p. 139). These studies focus mainlye in specific work settings make sense of their day-and situations” (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008, p.hy has also been applied to gain practical marketingent insights (e.g. in foodservice management,, 2005); these kinds of studies are usually designederse industry-specific questions (Belk, Fischer, &.f this paper is to examine how an ethnographiclised in hospitality services and more specifically inw services. Several studies that have appliedn tourism (Barbieri et al., 2012; Buckley, 2012;, 2013; Houge Mackenzie & Kerr, 2013; Komppula3; Larsen & Meged, 2013; Mordue, 2005; Muskatbensen & Foss, 2011; Rantala, 2011; Tumbat, 2011)nally focus on service development, but their resultsfor development purposes in relation to existing
llo de Rezende and Rodrigues Silva (2012) examineriences that are provided by commercial eating-out. They especially focused on the experiential envi-service system) and identified six ideal types ofrs. One the most famous ethnographic studies madety field using ethnographic methods is Arnould andstudy about experiences relating to river raftingfocused on studying the key elements in deliveringxperiences, presenting diverse perspectives of ser-s, and the role of interaction in delivering servicetheir study, they collected valuable informationthe functionality of the service process was receivedguide). The above-mentioned studies made in thebring forth information about the emotions, moti-periences of tourists during their trips. From a ser-nt and development point of view, this is importantd it can be used e.g. in service concept development.is a lack of research that focuses on examining andphy when new services are developed.ledge, there are only a few studies that have usedexamining NSD or in NSD. A study of von Koskull
011) examines a service development as practice bygraphic research approach that longitudinally ex-remental development process of a bank's website.d that developers were talking about keeping theind when the service was being developed butirect customer information was hardly used.Lassila (2014) applied several methods of customertheir study, including ethnography. They state thatformation gathered in an ethnographic study it waselop the service system and the service process of aess. However they also mention that the largeta, costs and the time required for the process cane of ethnography by tourism businesses. Heikkil€an (2014) examined the appropriateness and
6
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itability of participant observation as a method for collectingta in tourism product development. They used constant com-risons to compare data collected by observation and question-ires. According to their findings, participant observation is aitable data collection method when testing a tourist product,t additional data collection methods such as surveys and in-rviews should be used in order to get more reliable data duringe product testing phase.In ethnographic research, the researcher takes on a large role inderstanding the research subject. It is common that in anhnographic study, a phenomenon is studied by utilising a varietysets of data and data collection methods (Fetterman, 2010;
oulding, 2005; Holloway et al., 2010). Data is often acquired bying participant observation inwhich the researcher is involved insearch in everyday life and activities. In addition, the data may bellected by using other methods such as by conducting interviewsd the delivery questionnaires (e.g. Fetterman, 2010). Duringcent years, researchers have also started to carry out ethno-aphic research in virtual space by using diverse ethnographicethods (e.g. Belk et al., 2013). Several ethnographic studies showat using multiple methods in data collection enables the gath-ing of a more comprehensive picture from the phenomenonamined (e.g. Arnould & Price, 1993; Heikkil€a & Ryyn€anen, 2014).rnould and Price (1993, p. 41) conclude in their study that “Nota set stands on its own as sufficient evidence of the narrative. Eachta set can be criticized on one or more criteria (Arnould &allendorf, 1993). Together, however, they converge to tell a storyout “river magic.”” Articles that have used an ethnographicproach have usually used several different methods to collect theta. Table 1 presents an overview of the methods used in the ar-cles referred to above.Even though ethnographic studies (and especially studies withauto-ethnographic approach, see e.g. Barbieri et al., 2012:
ckley, 2012; Komppula & Gartner, 2013; Prebensen & Foss, 2011)ve become more common in tourism studies, and have also seene emergence of studies in relation to co-producing and co-nstructing services (Larsen & Meged, 2013; Tumbat, 2011),ere still exists a lack of empirical research that utilises and ex-ines the usage of an ethnographic research approach in newrvice development in the tourism and hospitality sectors.
Wellbeing tourism e developing a forest-based wellbeingurism product
1. Defining wellbeing tourism
In the tourism field there are several forms of tourism mainlycus on increasing or enhancing consumers' individual well-ing. Health and wellness tourism have become important topicstourism research and the tourism business, and the concept ofellness has established its standing in tourism terminologyangas & Tuohino, 2008; Konu, 2010). In addition to health andellness tourism, several other forms of tourism related toysical and mental wellbeing have been introduced and manythors have examined and explored the different forms andncepts related to them (e.g. Bj€ork, Tuohino, & Konu, 2011; Chen,ebensen, & Huan, 2008; Goodrich & Goodrich, 1987; Mair,05; Voigt, Brown, & Howat, 2011) and discussed their variousterrelationships (e.g. Hall, 2011; Konu, 2010). There are manyfferent views about the relationships between these diversencepts. For example, health tourism and healthcare tourismncepts are used alongside wellbeing and wellness tourism.ccording to García-Alt�es (2005, p. 262; adapting Ross, 2001)alth tourism is based on travelling outside the home to takere of one's health, and the purpose of the trip may be the
healing ofwellbeing.concepts oSuontaustafrom healthealthcarewellbeingmaintain o
In additgoal of wellluxurious eaforementionected to tmedical touand yoga aregarded asmainly beeTourist Boademic litera2010; KonuPesonen, Laof wellnessMüller & La2006) existourism ansynonymstween the c
Sheldonfollows: “Wquest for phconsciousnemunity, nattourism exppriate infrasThis definitthe tourist'this study aas a specificBj€ork et al.people whoand work, fpersonal warising therments to itprovide wiservices, wenhancingthe body anluxury. Theregions thaKonu et al2009).
In Finlanform of tou(FTB, 2008wellbeing ttance of thebeing touriof the wellWellness’ (et al., 2010destinationdependentand hot sprCooper & C
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015)
illness or its prevention, and the promotion oflbeing and healthcare tourism are seen as sub-ealth tourism (e.g. FTB, 2005; Konu, 2010;Tyni, 2005). Wellbeing/wellness tourism differse tourism based on the motives for travel. Inism, the main motive is to treat an illness, while inism the main motive is to prevent illness orhealth and wellbeing.to enhancing physical and mental wellbeing, theg tourism is also to obtain/provide pleasurable andriences (e.g. Konu et al., 2010). In addition to theconcepts, other forms of tourism are further con-
heme. For instance, spiritual tourism, spa tourism,, Thalasso tourism, occupational wellness tourism,editation tourism (Smith & Puzck�o, 2009) can be-sectors of health tourism. Wellbeing tourism hased as an advertising concept (e.g. by the Finnishbut it is also being increasingly discussed in aca-(e.g. Bj€ork et al., 2011; Hjalager et al., 2011; Konu,Laukkanen, 2010; Pesonen & Komppula, 2010;anen, & Komppula, 2011). As multiple definitionswellness tourism ranging from the very broad (e.g.aufmann, 2001) to the more specific (e.g. Connell,academic literature, the concepts of wellnessllbeing tourism have in many cases been used asHuijbens, 2011). However, some differences be-epts have also been addressed (e.g. Bj€ork, 2011).Bushell (2009, p. 11) define wellness tourism asss tourism is a holistic mode of travel that integrates al health, beauty, or longevity, and/or a heightening ofr spiritual awareness, and a connection with com-or the divine mystery. It encompasses a range ofnces in destinations with wellness products, appro-tures, facilities, and natural and wellness resources.”ncludes several different perspectives ranging fromerience to the service offering and destination. Inilar approach is used, and wellbeing tourism is seencept defined by adapting the definition laid out by11) (modified from Bj€ork, 2011): “… trips taken byorarily relinquish the places where they normally liveeasons of self-indulgence, health retreats, and theiring, and the sum of phenomena and relationshipsm” and adding the supply and environment ele-nce, wellbeing tourists travel to destinations thatelections of wellbeing and wellness facilities andcan range from physical activities to services
tal wellbeing, such as pampering, refreshment ofind, spiritual awareness, exercise and experiences oflbeing destinations are usually located in areas ande appealing natural settings (Kelly & Smith, 2009;10; Pechlaner & Fischer, 2006; Smith & Puzck�o,
ellbeing tourism has been identified as a uniquewith a special strategy for international markets
ghlighting the natural resources as a core of thesm product. Several studies emphasise the impor-ironment for customers (and destination) in well-Kelly & Smith, 2009; Smith & Puzck�o, 2009). Someg and wellness tourism concepts, such as ‘Alpinelaner & Fischer, 2006) and ‘Lake Wellness’ (Konure strongly based on the natural resources of addition, many wellbeing and wellness services areatural resources. Good examples aremineral watersthat are believed to have healing powers (Erfurt-
er, 2009).
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Table 1Diverse methods used in data collections in ethnographic studies.
Source Method used
Observation Interviews Surveys Written materials Video-ethnography Mobileethnography
Arnould and Price (1993) X (participantobservation)
X (focus groups,in-depth interviews)
X (drop-off/mail-back,pre-river-trip andpost-river-trip surveys)
Barbieri et al. (2012) X (direct andparticipantobservation)
X (informalconversations)
Buckley (2012) X (participantobservation)
X (informaldiscussions)
Carvallo de Rezende andRodrigues Silva (2012)
X (non-participantobservation)
X (interviews)
Coghlan and Filo (2013) X (participantobservation)
X (focus groupsand interviews)
Houge Mackenzieand Kerr (2013)
X X
Komppula andGartner (2013)
X (diaries:auto-ethnographicapproach)
Komppula andLassila (2014)
X X (semi-structured) X
von Koskull andFoug�ere (2011)
X (face-to-face,telephone, mix offace-to-face andtelephone observation,observer as unobtrusiveas possible)
Larsen and Meged(2013)
X (participantobservation)
Mordue (2005) X X (focus groups,in-depth interviews)
X
Muskat et al. (2013) XPrebensen and
Foss (2011)X X (diaries: including
participationobservations,discussions and livedexperiences)
Tumbat (2011) X (participantobservation)
X (in-depth interviews)
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015) 1e166
.2. Background for forest-based wellbeing tourism and theevelopment process of forest-based wellbeing tourism products ee case description
Both in Finland and Japan, the positive effects of the forest onhysical and mental health and the wellbeing of individuals haveeen under investigation for some time. In Finland, for instance, theenefits of nature, green areas and forest environments for well-eing are recognised (e.g. Korpela, Borodulin, Neuvonen, Paronen,Tyrv€ainen, 2014; Tyrv€ainen et al., 2014). In Japan there is a
ather new tradition of forest bathing (‘Shinrin-yoku’) that is a formf relaxation associated with forest recreation (Park et al., 2009). Itshown that ‘Shinrin-yoku’ reduce stress (Tsunestugu, Park, &
oshifumi, 2010). The research results showing the benefits of na-ure and forest environments indicate that the forest can be an idealetting and resource for wellbeing tourism in which the aim is tonhance and promote one's personal wellbeing. Finland has anbundance of forests and wilderness areas which could be used forctivities related to forest therapy and relaxation in natural set-ings. However, these resources, especially in thewellbeing tourismontext, remain rather underutilised.Forest-based wellbeing tourism can be defined based on the
ore resource utilised in the tourism products e the forests: Forest-ased wellbeing tourism takes place in or near a forest environ-ent. The forest-based wellbeing tourism product may include e.g.hysical activities and relaxation/stress relief in the forest, uti-sation of the natural resources of the forests (e.g. berries for food
and materihow to use
This casproject, thetourism proFinland (anselected astraditions fLee et al., 2are the largEurope.
The aimcould be inbased on thforests, lakferings (fooservice mocustomer e2006; Konumodules inbased wellbusiness neservicemodcan also sedevelopedgroup, andphases of t
or handicrafts) and also learning activities related toural resources for wellbeing purposes (Konu, 2014).dy describes one part of a Forest wellbeing tourismm of which was to develop a range of wellbeingts highlighting the special characteristics of easterna characterised by large forests). The Japanese weretential international target group as they have longellbeing tourism, experience of forest therapies (e.g.; Park et al., 2009; Tsunestugu et al., 2010), and theygroup of visitors coming to Finland from outside of
the project was to develop product modules thated in a tourism package. The product modules arecal service system, the strengths of which includehe clean air of the biosphere reserve, nature's of-Karelian culture and folk medicine traditions. Thees form the service process through which therience occurs leading to customer value (Komppula,al., 2010). Hence, the aim is to develop the serviceay that they support the service concept of a forest-g tourism product. The services are developed in ark that was built around the theme. The range ofs can be used as a part of a tourism package, but theyas independent tourism activities. The product isther with the representatives of the potential targetnce the customers have been involved in severalSD processes.
aireSntitrnesebydususecoshwthov
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1e16
The developments in this case started with an explorative studyming to find out the needs and interests of Japanese tourists inlation to forest-based wellbeing products (see Komppula &icker, 2013). Based on the findings of the study and informa-on gathered from reports of Japanese consumer behaviour andends (e.g. FTB, 2011; OECD Economic Surveys, 2011) the busi-sses involved in the project started to develop a diverse range ofrvicemodules. In the next phase, the servicemodules were testedusing a virtual product testing platform (Konu, 2014) that pro-ced significant amounts of pertinent information, as well asggestions for the further development of the modules. Thoservice modules that were found appealing or received diversemments were chosen for the actual on-site test product. Fig. 1ows the service development process of this case. This paperill focus on the phase circled in red (in the web version), namelye external testing of the service modules developed and theerall tourism package product with a Japanese test group on-site.
Data collection and analysis
Even though qualitative methods are being usedmore andmoretourism studies, some of the qualitative research techniques suchethnography, auto-ethnography or participant observation, aret numbered among the most commonly applied (Komppula &artner, 2013). Because a tourist experience is subjective andfferent people experience the same situations (e.g. service con-mption) in different ways, it is important to examine these ex-riences from the perspectives of the individuals involved (Ryan,10). In this case study data about the product testing phase ofe NSD was collected by using an ethnographic approach in orderobtain versatile information about on-site product testing. In thisudy it is recognised that multiple realities exist and peoplenstrict knowledge through lived experiences and interactionsith others (Lincoln et al., 2011). By using ethnographic approachesd multiple data collection methods, a more comprehensive pic-re of the phenomenon under examination is gained and thefferent realities of the informants are revealed. The multiplerspectives of reality help to understand why people act and thinkfferent ways (Fetterman, 2010) and for instance in this case why
have a subjoutput ofKovalainendividuals an
The datanorth Kareformed fromtour operatTable 2). Thtivese fromproject perfrom Japan.ested andrepresent tChandy, Dselected toin nature anwellbeing tstudy that tmarkets, somarket thainterest in tgroups, botproject's coselection ofticipants wwere soughaddition tomost importours for JaTheir experand it wasuate wheth
The testsometimesproduct as atruly interecase, the sdestination
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015)
rtain service modules are experienced differently. In this study, I and accommod
Fig. 1. The new service development process for a forest-based well
ist view on ontology as I assume that reality is anial and cognitive processes (e.g. Eriksson &8) and reality is about the interpretations of in-roups (Blaikie, 1993).s collected during a tourism product test on-site ininland, 25e30 August 2013. The test group washt Japanese customers and two representatives of aat offers trips to Finland for Japanese tourists (seeal was to gather feedback from different perspec-end users and from the intermediaries. The Finnishel gave guidelines for choosing the test customersit is suggested that test customers should be inter-vated to test the product and the testers shouldpotential target market for the product (Hoyer,ic, Krafft, & Singh, 2010), the customers wereesent potential target groups (e.g. people interestedature activities, and wellbeing) for the forest-basedsm product. It was recognised in the explorativeype of product does not necessarily appeal to widerstrategic decision was made to focus on a nicheay find the product appealing. In addition to theopic, the participants should comprise different agenders and should show an interest in Finland. Theorative partner in Japan was in charge of the finaltest customers. As it was expected that the par-
already interested in Finland, the test customersut with help of the Finnish Japanese Society. InJapanese participants, the representatives of thepartner of the Finnish Tourist Board that organisesse people to Finland were invited on the test trip.e about Japanese customers was seen as valuableipated that they would have the expertise to eval-e product would be saleable on Japanese markets.duct is usually free for the test customers butcustomers are asked to pay something for the
lingness to pay indicates that the test customers arein the product (Komppula& Boxberg, 2002). In thisted test customers paid for their flights to theback, but the trip programme, all activities, food
7
ation was free for them.
being tourism product.
gttamttp(ocmctctootpatcw
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sa
women and inwere interviewcarried out in Eneeded clarifictour operator ropen and theyexperiences of
/the
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Table 2Profile of the participants.
Tester Age Gender Occupation Nationality
1 20 Female Student Japanese2 50 Male Guide Japanese3 53 Male Medical doctor Japanese4 60 Female Horticultural therapist Japanese5 55 Female Horticultural therapist Japanese
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015) 1e18
The data was collected by means of participant observation,roup interviews, and customer feedback surveys by the author ofhis paper. From now on I will report the process of the study fromhe first-person perspective. Comparing data from different sourcesdds reliability to the interpretation of the results. In addition, theultiple data sets complemented each other. Participant observa-
ion can provide detailed information e.g. about the functionality ofhe tourism product and its service modules, and give a differenterspective concerning how customers perceive the productHeikkil€a& Ryyn€anen, 2014; Komppula& Lassila, 2014). Participantbservation may also provide information that does not necessarilyome up during the course of customer feedback (e.g. customersay forget to report something or they do not necessarily want toomplain about some issues). During the participant observation inhis case, I focused on observing the service environments, theustomers and the interaction between service providers, cus-omers and the environment. In addition, I also brought forth mywn experiences from diverse situations. The data from participantbservation comes from field notes (from now on referred to as FN)hat I wrote during the trip. The notes include both emic and eticerspectives. I also took a number of pictures from different situ-tions and activities to support the FN. I started the observation athe airport when the test group arrived at the destination andontinued until their departure. I took part in all of the activitiesith the test customers during the test trip.In the beginning of the trip, I introduced myself as a researcher
nd said that my role during the trip was to be one of the customersnd to observe how things and services are going. In addition toyself, an interpreter and a local Finnish tour guide were presentr the duration of the trip. I also mentioned the feedback surveysnd asked them to fill in the forms on a daily basis and to return therms to me. In the open-ended questionnaire, they were asked toescribe what activities and/or things were the best during the day,hat they would improve, and their overall assessment of the day.addition, theywere asked to evaluate each servicemodule of that
ay (listed in the questionnaire; these include e.g. a spa visit, aiking trip, accommodation) by using a star rating (1 ¼ poor … …
¼ excellent). Similar star ratings were also used in the virtualroduct testing phase (Konu, 2014). The Japanese test customerslled out the questionnaire in Japanese and the representatives ofhe tour operator in English. All test customers filled out all of therms on each day. By the end of the trip, they had also filled andditional form that was used to get an overall assessment of thehole trip. One test customer did not return the forms during therip as he had written the comments and evaluations on a com-uter. He sent all the evaluations right after the trip to me via e-ail. The Japanese comments and responses were translated intoinnish after the trip.At the end of the test trip, I conducted two group interviews to
upplement the information gained from participant observationnd customer feedback forms. In one interview, two Japanese
experienceimprove.
I preparand transcrpart in theFinnish. Thwritten resinterviews.first in theme to makthe end. Thday by dayweek. In threlated to tinterpretatthe tour guincrease tKovalainenthe researinformants
For theethnographethnographby using temployed wdevelopmeanalysis thvisible or lathe four peof the infointeractivitframeworkobtain moinductive pcame up ungenerated akind of infoering meth
6. Finding
6.1. Informknowledge
During tthe appealas the suitainformationneed for ad
A lot ofdiverse serva general lvery detailcould be imby the custan examplcooking wvested from
6 47 Female Producer & planner Japanese7 55 Female English teacher Japanese8 54 Female Housewife Japanese9 30 Female Tour operator representative Finnish10 27 Female Tour operator representative Estonian
the other two representatives of the tour operatorsed. The interview with the Japanese visitors wasnglish but the interpreter was present if somethingation during the interview. The interview with theepresentatives was in English. The interviews werelasted 18 and 24 min. The interviews dealt with thethe test customers, e.g. what the most memorablebest part of this trip was, and what they would
nd organised the raw data for analysis by typing FNg interviews. In addition, the interpreter that tooktrip translated the written feedback responses intoerall data consisted of the field notes (26 pages),ses of the test customers (53 pages) and the twoad the data through several times and organised iter the material was gathered each day. This helpedescription of the whole trip from the beginning toip description included a depiction of all activitiesactivity by activity, telling the story of the whole
escription, I also used available additional materialverall product and individual service modules. Theof the data was discussed with the interpreter andthat had gained experiences from the whole trip. Totrustworthiness (Creswell, 2014; Eriksson &08; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) the interpretations ofr were also discussed and checked with the
rpose of this paper, where the focus is not theescription of the trip as such but the usability of thepproach in NSD, I have analysed the collected datasame perspectives that Edvardsson et al. (2012)n they studied customer integration within serviceI analysed the data by using a qualitative contentterprets meanings, themes and patterns that arein the data examined (Çakmak& Isaac, 2012). I usedctives by Edvardsson et al. (2012), namely the formtion generated, innovation knowledge, degree ofd reporting and need identification, as an analysis
ese were used as the main themes in the analysis. Toetailed and profound information, I adapted anective to ground the examination of themes thateach main category. In examining the information
the innovation knowledge, I also differentiated whatation was gained by using the different data gath-in an ethnographic approach.
d discussion
gained for development purposes and innovation
est trip, a lot of informationwas gained in relation tofunctionality of individual service modules, as wellty of the modules for Japanese tourists. In addition,as received about the whole tourism package, theonal information, and commercialisation.ments and suggestions were received related to themodules part of the trip. The comments varied from, e.g. whether the service was appealing or not, tosuggestions, e.g. how a particular service moduleved. The emphasis of the components experiencedrs differed a lot in relation to some modules. To giveomments about a service module that includedmushrooms and other ingredients that were har-forest or were produced locally were either focused
6
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1e16
‘self-making’ or on the experience of tasting and gathering e.g.rries (and the experience that one could collect the rawmaterialsrsonally). One Japanese woman commented on issues that weret originally at the core of the product: “It was fun because I hadany different experiences such as visiting patches, picking fruits andrries, playing with a dog and also making a blueberry pie, and theod was good too”. (author's translation, feedback form).The data shows that the best activities during the trip weretivities that were connected to nature and the forest (e.g. hiking,yaking and guided tours including “silent walks” and “nature asenergizer”). One Japanese woman commented on this as fol-
ws: “The National Park was ‘expansive’ and open, and the trees didt grow in thickets. Hence the atmosphere was really soothing andu could stay there at one's leisure. It mademe feel healthier and eventhe total schedule was rather tight we got to spend a long time theren the forest]. The forest made me feel calm and energized.” (author'sanslation, feedback form). The walking in the forests in Finlandas perceived as being easier than in Japan and hence the teststomers felt that it was easier for them to relax in Finnish forests.e strengths of the nature activities included exercises focussing‘being in the moment’, experiencing nature with time, silenced the fact that being in nature and the nature activities them-lves do not need to just be the carrying out of an activity (e.g.king fast from one place to another). Being in the moment andperiencing nature raised very powerful feelings for some teststomers: “The first exercise raised strong feelings among the Japa-se guests. One of the women said that she felt being part of natured felt that it was much easier to breathe in that situation. Anotheroman said that she felt very relaxed hugging a tree and she almostll asleep when hugging it.” (FN) Some of Japanese were veryuched and emotional and even shed tears.As this was a test trip, the timetable was very tight because
any activities and service modules were to be tested. This feltther exhausting for the test customers. In addition, the timetabled not hold up verywell and the days became very long. Thewholeogramme was planned in a way that each day had some kind ofeme. However, the theme could have been stated more explicitlyd the programme should have included the topics for the days.me of the comments and suggestions were not directly con-cted to some particular service module. In these kind of com-ents, the test customers gave suggestions for new serviceodules that could e.g. replace the most uninteresting ones. Theta revealed that the Japanese customers expected much moretailed information than was provided.During the trip the Japanese visitors also gave suggestions
lated to the marketing and selling of these kinds of tourismoducts to Japanese markets. They gave suggestions aboutssible target groups and highlighted that it is essentiallyportant to raise the general awareness of Finland and particulareas of Finland in Japan. Giving clear themes to the trips and eachy of the trip would also help to target the product more effi-ently to the right target groups. Table 3 summarises the infor-ation that was received for the development process by using anhnographic approach and differentiates between the kinds offormation gained from different data sets.Table 3 shows that the information gathered by different
ethods with an ethnographic approach yields rather diversifiedformation from the tested product. Hence, the types of infor-ation gained by observation, as well as via questionnaires andterviews, completed each other. First, participant observationve insights about the service system, service process and alsoout the service concept of the overall tourism product studied.sed on the observations, the service concept of a forest-basedellbeing tourism product should be about experiencing the for-t in different ways in order to relax, be in the moment, and feel
personal wservice modoutcome. Tabout the inup in the cwere e.g. rethe groupavailable orformation ttomers paidelementsfrastructureand what ktest customthe forest e
Second,which wrotcommentsmatters andescribing tdiversified athe serviceand the sermore difficvestments)tained by th
The inteplementedinterview wthey see thaalso gave sthey prefer
When cothe test custerviews, itsome servithere wereand spas) w
6.2. Experieproduct test
Severalparticipantparticipantway as otheparticipantchallengingespecially dreally felt reclosed, at thheard onlysurprised thmoment. Becan continuinstructed].ation exerci
Regardinlanguagewthe participsurprise thaEnglish at aentire trip.observationthe particip
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015)
eing. The service process includes the particulars that help the customer to achieve this feeling andbservations provided a lot of practical informationdual service modules that did not necessarily comemer feedback and interviews. These observationsd to the overall functionality of a service, whetherwas right, whether all the materials were easilyessible, and how the customers reacted to the in-uides gave, and to what kinds of details the cus-ention to. I also reported what kinds of feelings theected the service system (environment, in-tmosphere, quality of service and so on) gave meof feelings and emotions I observed (and what thetold me) and were elicited in the test customers byonment.test customers filled the daily questionnaires inry detailed experiences and comments. Some of thet with individual service modules in very detailedome comments were on a more general leveleelings from the trip. The informationwas then verysome of the suggestions were rather easy to apply inules. Some also commented on the infrastructuresystem. Naturally, these comments may be a bitto apply in practice (if they require large in-as positive to discover that the information ob-
uestionnaires was so rich.ws at the end of the trip supported and com-feedback that was given in the questionnaires. Thethe tour operator representatives also revealed thatere might be a market for this kind of product. Theystions for packaging (e.g. which service modulesmarketing the product.
aring my personal experiences and observations toer experiences revealed in feedback forms and in-interesting to find that the ideas and opinions ofodules were very similar, but on the other handbig differences regarding other services (e.g. saunasmost probably arose from the cultural differences.
of using ethnographic approaches in tourisme interactivity and reporting
es influence the interaction and reporting inervation. My role during the test trip was to be arver taking part in all of the activities in the sameembers of the test group. Hence, I had a role as ad an observer. I felt this occasionally to be a bits was also a challenge for me during some services,g those that required “being in the moment”: “Id and calm when I was lying on the rock with my eyesme time feeling the soft breeze and sun on my face. Iind. During this exercise I felt very relaxed and wasdid not think of anything else but that particularstarting this exercise I remember of wondering how Iobserve the group if I keep my eyes closed [that washat situation everyone seemed to focus on the relax-I went along with a good conscience.” (FN).e interaction with the Japanese test customers, thechallenge. Before the test trip we knew that some ofmay not speak English very well. However, it was ame of the Japanese attending the trip did not speakn interpreter was with the test group during thelanguage issue also influenced the participant
the beginning of the trip, I tried to converse with alland observe their reactions. On the first day during
9
Table 3Type of information gained for product development.
Focus Combined findings: type ofinformation gained for productdevelopment
Information gained by participantobservation
Information gained by feedbacksurvey
Information gained by groupinterviews
Service modules Comments and suggestions:content of diverse servicemodules
� What is perceived as interestingin individual service modules
� What components and issues ofthe service module were goodand what should be improved:e.g. duration, timetable, facilities
� Functionality of individualservice modules.
� Detailed information andsuggestions related to thefacilities, smoothness of theservice and guidance.
� Information at a general level(e.g. whether the service wasappealing or not) to verydetailed suggestions (e.g.how a particular servicemodule could be improved).
� Differences in the emphasisof the experiencedcomponents of diverseservice modules
� Elements that made certainservice modules the best/most memorable or theworst.
Appeal of individual servicemodules� Interest in diverse service
modules� What is perceived as important in
individual service modules� Should the service module be
included in the overall tourismpackage or not
� The service modules that dividedopinions offered as an additional/optional services
� The best and the most appealingactivities during the trip wereactivities that were connected tonature and the forest (e.g. hiking,kayaking and guided toursincluding “silent walks” and“nature as an energizer”).
� Strong emotions were evidentduring some of the servicemodules.
� The activities connected tonature and the forest arealso the most appealing forthe customers.
� Some service modulesdivided opinions quitedrastically.
� The service modules thatwere felt to be the best andthe most memorable werebrought up.
� The worst service moduleswere listed.
� Suggestion for removing theworst modules from thefinal product.
Quality level of service modules� Need to develop further some of
the service modules (e.g. payingmore attention to theblueprinting, internal testing ofnew service modules should bedone with groups of the samesize as the future target group oroutsider test group)
� Timing for instructions
� Some of the activities and servicemodules were more ‘ready’ thanothers (e.g. keeping to timetable,guidance).
� Some of the services were a bit‘unprofessional’.
� The guidance, instructionsand information related toservices came up repeatedly.In some services theinstructions were seen asbeing a bit difficult tounderstand and also thetiming of the instructionswas seen as problematic.
� Issues were dealt with on ageneral level when the bestand the worst experienceswere discussed.
� The representative of thetour operators commentedon the service modules theyfound the most ready for themarkets.
Suggestions for new servicemodules� Evaluating the suitability of the
new ideas for the basis of newservice modules
� Suggestions for new servicemodules that could replacethe most uninteresting ones.Many of these suggestions orrequests were related tohaving more activitiesrelated to Finnish everydaylife.
Whole tourismproduct
Comments and suggestions:content of the whole tourismproduct� It is important to set a reasonable
number of activities per day andalso give free time in addition tothe guided activities.
� The whole programme wasplanned so that each day hadsome kind of theme
� The tour guide needs to be firm inguiding the group and keeping upthe schedule
�There needs to be bettercoordination related to the overalltrip, e.g. what kind of food is servedin each area/place
� The timetable of the trip was feltto be very tight and full. Thetimetable was not kept very welland all the days became verylong.
� There could be morecoordination when the overallproduct is planned. For instancethe food was rather similar inmany places and many of theJapanese mentioned this duringthe trip.
� The theme of the whole tripneed to describe the contentof the trip well.
� The tight timetable and thefact that timetables weren'tkept felt rather exhausting bythe test customers.
� Each of the days could have aclearer theme and it could bebetter stated in theprogramme, e.g. ‘forestexperiences in nature’ and‘delicacies and handicraftsfrom materials from nature’.
� The food was felt to be goodeven though the customersfelt that there were quite a lotsimilar kinds of food duringthe whole trip (even if theservice providers did notnecessarily feel the food to besimilar the Japanese testcustomers thought so, e.g.serving meat in differentforms).
� The full timetable and notbeing on time.
� It was stated that keeping upthe timetable is not aproblem for Japanese butthey want to have exactinformation on how muchtime they have in each placeand for each activity.
Information Request for additionalinformation� More detailed information about
the service modules, placesvisited and routes taken
� Information about what shouldbe brought for the trip
� Japanese customers expect verydetailed information. They werealso very interested in theeveryday life of Finnish people(food, accommodation etc.).
� Expectations for much moredetailed information thatwas provided.
� Preference of having adetailed map from each dayincluding the places visitedand the routes taken as well
� Need for additionalinformation came up.
� A detailed list that includedthe things that the customershould bring with themwhen they come wasrequested. They commented
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015) 1e1610
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Table 3 (continued )
Focus Combined findings: type ofinformation gained for productdevelopment
Information gained by participantobservation
Information gained by feedbacksurvey
Information gained by groupinterviews
� Giving updated information inchanging situations
� Expectations for moreinformation from the guide inchanging situations.
as more detailed informationabout the places visited orthe activities attended.
� Expectation to get a list ofthings that they shouldbring for the trip.
� Hoped to get updatedinformation about thechanges in the programme (ifthere is some) and how thatwill affect forthcomingactivities.
that the list did not includee.g. a toothbrush and theyexpected that it would beprovided with theaccommodation (in Japanthere are toothbrush in thehotel rooms).
Commercialisation Suggestions for marketing� Raise general awareness� Create clear themed products for
specified target groups
� Common awareness of Finland:based on the discussions Finlandis not very well known in Japan.
� Suggestions that marketersshould invite some famousJapanese actors to visit the area tomake a TV programme(influential way to make an area
� Suggestions about possibletarget groups.
� Important to raise thegeneral awareness ofFinland and particular areasof Finland in Japan.
� Giving clear themes for thetrips and each day of thetripprothe
� Giving clear themes to thetrip and each day of the trip.
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015) 1e16 11
landscape spa testing “I tried to choose places in a way that Iouldn't be with the same people all the time. Despite my attempts Iill ‘missed’ a few members of the group [during the service testing].n the other hand these people couldn't speak English.” (FN). Aftertting more familiar with the people in the group, I found theople who were more active in giving their opinions and couldso speak English: “It was nice to notice that I could converse withe guests in English, but also using non-verbal language with the onest speaking English. At the beginning of the trip I was afraid that Iouldn't be able to get anything out of them without an interpreter.”N). In addition “It was interesting to notice that the more time Ient with this group, the more I can understand about the topics theye discussing [in Japanese] even though I don't understand the lan-age”. (FN).Due to the fact that some of the Japanese could not speak anyglish, it was good that the feedback formswere all translated intopanese and the test customers could give their comments andedback in their native language. I think that more detailed andcher descriptions were given as the English vocabulary did notit their expression. The interviews were conducted in two lan-ages. First, I interviewed the representatives of the tour operatorsEnglish. The interpreter was present in the group interview withe Japanese women. I conducted the interview mainly in Englishboth of the interviewees could speak English, but the Japaneseked the interpreter to translate some issues straight from Japa-se to English/Finnish in some cases.Before of the test trip, I needed to pay attention to my pre-sumptions about Japanese people and Japanese culture. Beforee participant observation, I tried to form a pre-understanding andmiliarise myself with Japanese culture and people. To do this Iok part in some training days that dealt with Japanese culture,nguage and habits. Based on these training days and the writtenaterial about Japanese expectations, I formed certain pre-sumptions about Japanese customers. However, when the testoup arrived, some of my assumptions proved to be wrong: “Mysumptions that the Japanese would be very formal and reserved fellay when the Japanese came to meet us [the people involved in theoject and the tour guide]. Some of the customers even hugged mehen they came and introduced themselves. They seemed to be veryppy and excited when I welcomed them in Japanese.” (FN). I was
also a bit aclear negatrespect proin the feedbThey alsointerviews.
When Ihad a lot inexperiencesand also thdiscussionscustomer othe beginniextra persothe same timamong thethe shared eand more asme and theythe other ha few timeskeeping tosponsibilityI had somewell: “It botcome or goand this wasI didn't do arealistic a pfunctionalitjob to interftrip, thereother test ctime they hfeedback fo
As the tservices eacchallengingwas very tirdecided that
well recognised among potentialJapanese tourists).
that the Japanese would not necessarily provideeedback out of politeness. Luckily, my fears in thiso bewrong as the test customers stated very clearlyforms what they liked and what they did not like.e critical feedback during the activities and
attending the different activities during the trip, Ial discussions with the test customers about ourfeelings, memories that arose in some situations
nctionality of some of the services. During thesee test customers either treated me as anothererson that was organising the trip (even though atf the trip I tried to make clear that I was just oneting the trip and doingmore detailed evaluations atAt the beginning of the trip, I felt a bit of an outsiderr test customers. However, I think that because ofriences during the trip I quickly “started to feel moreart of the group. The test customers started to includeed me questions about my family and so on.” (FN). Onthe representative of the tour operator came to mediscussed something that should be improved (e.g.timetable) that was not really part of my re-
s raised some contradictory feelings and sometimesculty not to interfere if something was not goingd me that no-one really seemed to guide the guests toe right places. Everyone were often scattered aroundof the reasonwhy we could not keep to the timetable.
hing to improve the situation as I wanted to have ase as possible about the whole tourism product and itsy role is to be a participant observer and it is not myith the guidance or other activities.” (FN). During thequite many situations where I observed that themers did not know e.g. what to do or how muchhese same issues and situations also came up in theand interviews.rip was very intensive with multiple activities andy, making the notes and reportingwas sometimesdays started at 8 am and lasted until 11 pm, which“Being in the sauna was so good after long days and Iead of having a palju [hot water barrel for bathing] I
also helps to target theduct more efficiently toright target groups.
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ill go back to my room to write my notes so that I wouldn't fall asleephen I'm writing.” (FN). I wrote some notes during our trans-ortation but I ended up doing most of the reporting after the dayr early in morning. If I didn't have a lot of time during the trans-ortation, I used pen and paper to write down some bullet pointsbout situations and observations. I also took a lot of pictures ofarious situations and the pictures helped me to remember thingshat I wanted to report. All the test customers were very active inlling in the feedback forms. Many of the respondents wrote longescriptions of their experiences of each day. I didn't look at theesponses during the trip so that they would not influence myotes. Having this large amount of customer feedback informationroved highly valuable when the entire trip was reported.All the data acquisition methods yielded valuable information
bout the product tested. In many cases, the data sets com-lemented each other. However, therewere some situations where,ccording tomy observations, everything did not go as was plannednd for instance the service process did not go smoothly. Theseame situations did not necessarily come up in the feedback formst all. Perhaps these things were not evident for the customerecause they did not know how everything was planned to haveone or go, and I knew how everything should have gone. On thether hand, the test customers highlighted some features ofarticular services that I did not consider or notice at all.
. Conclusion
.1. Theoretical and methodological contribution
The findings show that an ethnographic approach can bepplied and is useful in the product testing phase of NSD. Theombination of three data sets, participant observation, feedbackurveys and group interviews, provided rich and versatile data setshat complemented each other well. This kind of approach makes itossible to involve customers in the development process quitetensively. In participant observation, customer are mainly beings a passive “resource” of observation (Edvardsson et al., 2012).owever, in this case, there was also some interaction between theesearcher and test customers in the form of informal discussions.bservations also revealed how the test customers interacted withach other, with the service providers and in different service en-ironments. It was also possible to observe the feelings and emo-ions of the customers and reflect on those they gave in theedback for various activities. Hence, the observation gave addi-ional information about the backgrounds and reasons that cus-omers had for certain kinds of comments and evaluations. Inddition, the test customers could give their comments and feed-ack on a daily basis by filling in the feedback form, and some ofhem also by taking part in the interviews. I agree with Arnould andrice (1993) and Arnould and Wallendorf (1993) that each data setan be criticised but together they bring together a holistic view ofhe test trip.
The research subjects in ethnographic research are traditionallytudied in their authentic environments or situations (e.g.etterman, 2010). The role of the subjects being researched in thistudy differs from the traditional idea of subjects studied ethno-raphically because the participants knew that they were testustomers. In addition, the customers were very much involved inhe development process as they invested their own resources inrder to participate in the testing (they paid for their own trip to theestination). Hence the participants had an active role in the NSDrocess.The information gathered by using an ethnographic approach in
roduct testing phases was very rich. The information obtained byarticipant observation, from questionnaires and in interviews was
not just contourism prwere relatdevelopmecontributedservice mothat it is uscomprehennomenon s2014).
This studifferent prepresentatfrom the cconnected(2012) becament procinteractionalso existedplace in therealised. Threlated and2012). Edvmethods fothe lead-usEdvardssoncollect ideacustomersseen as a pinteractioninvolved inparticipantuser-methothe case wh2012). Edvacially usefucapture infare in the v
In this cmation fromprocesses athe study iinformationshow thatdoes not jugenerationtion. The ettion approabehaviour a2012). Thethis case thbrings mor
An ethntion, enabletions of cusservices thUsually sertionabilitydevelopedbrief (Bitnemany otheris longer, afrom a set ogained by uemotions a
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015)2
ted to the particular service modules and the overallct tested. In addition, information and suggestionsto service concept development, service processand commercialisation. The test customers alsothe idea generation phase by suggesting additionals. The results support the studies that emphasiseto use multiple methods in data collection to gain apicture and different perspectives on the phe-
ed (e.g. Arnould& Price,1993; Heikkil€a& Ryyn€anen,
rovides insights for product development from theectives of Japanese test customers, tour operator, and a participant observer. The information gainedmers by using an ethnographic approach can behe mode of the correspondent by Edvardsson et al.the customers that were involved in the develop-experienced real service use situations, includingd activities in the service process. The participantsthe real service context because the testing tookironment and regionwhere the end product will benables the customers to give information that is use-nected to important value drivers (Edvardsson et al.,son et al. (2012) have included three differente “correspondent” mode, namely empathic design,ethod, and the CUDIT experiments. According tol. (2012) empathic design is used in NSD contexts tor new and existing services and to examine howract. They continue that in this method the users areve resource for observation and hence the level oflow. In the lead-user-method the customer isevelopment team making the customer an activehe NSD process (Edvardsson et al., 2012). The lead-ims to create novel service solutions, which is alsothe CUDIT experiments are used (Edvardsson et al.,son et al. (2012) see that these methods are espe-the early stages of NSD and the methods are used toation in situations where and when the customerscreation process and experiencing value.the ethnographic approach is applied to get infor-tuations where customers are taking part in servicexperiencing value. However, in this case the focus oft the early stages of NSD but rather on acquiringm the external product testing phase. The resultsinformation gained by an ethnographic approachenefit this phase of development, but also the idease and later phases of NSD, such as commercialisa-graphic approach also contains similar data collec-s than e.g. empathic design based on observing userinteraction within their contexts (Edvardsson et al.,ographic approach also includes observation, but inrm of the observation, being participant observation,teraction to the data collection process.aphic approach, and especially participant observa-rvice providers to get information about the emo-ers. This is especially important when experientialre connected to emotions are being developed.development focuses just on the usability or func-
the services and service encounters. Studied andice encounters in many service sectors are rather990). As a service, a tourism product differs fromvices because the duration of the service experiencee experience of the overall tourism product comesrvice modules and encounters. Valuable informationparticipant observation, such as information about
situations and products that raise these emotions,
6
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7.
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1e16
ould be missed if the data in this case were collected just by usingedback questionnaires and interviews. In this case the strongotional experiences were gained mostly during service modulesat were realised in natural environments and were guided inme way. This supports the findings of Arnould and Price (1993, p.when they state that “[e]motional outcomes associated with
traordinary experience are embedded in relationships betweenstomer and service provider”. These emotional experiences thating value to a customer are the core of a tourist product.
2. Managerial implications
An ethnographic approach seems to be suitable when complexperiential services, such as tourism products, are being devel-ed because it provides information about the developed productom different levels (service concept, service process and servicestem). However, the approach is very time consuming and thuspensive.This study has several managerial implications. The serviceoviders developing the service modules and the overall packageceive very practical and detailed information for product devel-ment purposes. The information gathered helps them to developeir services for Japanese target groups, but equally many of thetailed suggestions about single service modules help them tovelop the services in general and improve overall quality. As theta showed, some service modules were not seen as being verypealing. These modules should automatically be left outside theerall package and the developers should focus on those activitiesat were felt to lead to the most positive experiences. The serviceoviders need to facilitate those service modules that can lead torong positive emotions. As this study showed, the guided activ-ies in a natural environment were the ones that brought the mostsitive emotional experiences. Hence, attention should be paid toe knowhow of the guides as being facilitators of the emotionalperiences concerned.Some of the service modules divided opinions quite drastically,d in this case one option could be that these service modules
activities anHence sometheir realisaoped). In ashould be d(or externamodules todid not eva
The sugdevelopmeimportantformed, oractivities arcerning thewhole tripthe timetabbecause maThis felt rattimetable wFor the finaactivities peactivities. Tand keepinthe servicewhen the inities in thetourism pronature doanother, buencing natu
In the mbe increasinshould be dtheme of fomarketing t
Several ithe data co
H. Konu / Tourism Management 49 (2015)
uld be offered as additional/optional services. Some of the and some lesso
ble 4entified issues in data collection and suggestions related to them.
Issues Lessons learnt Possible interventions
Role as a participantand observer
One cannot be in both roles all the time.Need to identify the situations when to be aparticipant and when an observer.
Realisation that in sompossible have both roletime. Be open to changdifferent situations.
Language Language can be a challenge whenparticular target groups are investigated.
If you don't know the lapossible to utilise othertest group as interpreteinterpreter is not close
Pre-assumptions It is important to have some informationabout the target group and their culturebeforehand.
Be open to change youduring the process.
Difficulty not to interfere There are situations where it is very difficultnot to interfere.
Keep in mind your role(naturally it is importaif something may resulsituation).
Making notes and reporting It is not possible to make notes in everysituation, but write the notes as soon aspossible.
Writing down bullet polot of pictures/filming chelps to remember theyou are writing the fin
Data acquiring methods:information gained
The collected data sets may eithercomplement each other or theymay be verydifferent. This is an important finding andsupports that using different data setsinstead of one, gives more profoundinformation.
e
ervice modules were also more ready than others.the service modules need more development e.g. in(the blueprints need to be more carefully devel-
ion internal testing of these new service moduleswith groups of same size as the future target groupt group). It was evident that the activities in somenger than expected because the service providersthe time needed correctly.
ions for packaging and marketing also help thef the next phases of product development; it isonsider these aspects when the final product isarticular target group is identified and marketinglanned. Comments and issues that came up con-rall service were connected e.g. to the theme of thethemes for each day, the food, the programme ands this was a test trip the timetable was very tightctivities and service modules needed to be tested.exhausting for the test customers. In addition theot kept very well and the days became very long.duct it is important to set a reasonable number ofy and also give free time in addition to the guidedur guide also needs to be firm in guiding the groupthe schedule. Information about the product andules in it should be detailed enough. For instance,mation about the service modules related to activ-est are described and marketed as a part of thet, it is important to mention that the exercises innecessarily mean just hiking from one place tostead may include regaining strength by experi-
ting, the starting point in Japanese markets shoulde overall visibility and awareness of Finland. Thistogether with the Finnish Tourist Board because the-based wellbeing fits well under one of the maines for Finland, ‘Silence, please’ (FTB, 2014b).s came up during the external testing connected toion. These issues related to product testing on-site
13
ns learned and suggestions are listed in Table 4.
during the trip Suggestions
e cases it is nots at the samee roles in
Try to think about possible situationsbeforehand and make a strategy how todeal the different situations.
nguage, it is alsomembers of thers when theby.
Preferably learn the language needed.However, it needs to be realised that itis not possible in every case (e.g.depending the resources allocated fordevelopment activities).
r assumptions Try to learn as much as possible aboutthe target group from different sources.
in the processnt to take actiont in a dangerous
Make clear to yourself and others whatyour role is during the testing.
ints and taking aertain situationssituations whenal notes.
Make plans for reporting before the tripand try to allocate enough time forreporting. However, be prepared tochange the original plans.Try to utilise all the data sets andanalyse the reasons for possibledifferences.
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ltinan verternebenrave& B.Filodersents.06).), 10. (20s (4t., Guon. Ig (Emper., Krn witnd e., & Oustr, P., &istolKovAGE08).the A. M.ethouomilla 2tionploadtegiaordeex.nsaa37on O
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hese issues and suggestions may help if a similar approach is usedthe product testing phase for other NSD cases.
.3. Limitations and future research directions
This study also has its limitations. The usability of an ethno-raphic approach is tested only in one case. In the future, it woulde interesting to get experiences from other cases. In this case,onvenience sampling was used to select the participants. Hence,he results may be somewhat different if other test groups werevolved. It also needs to be acknowledged that there may haveeen a preferential bias among the participants as their expensesr this trip were partly covered. However, the aim of this studywasot to make generalisations from the content of the results but toest how the ethnographic approach suits the external testinghase of NSD.The target group, of Japanese tourists, was rather challenging
ue to the cultural differences and the language. As a participantbserver, I could not speak Japanese and did not necessarily un-erstand everything that was discussed. In addition, not all thepanese spoke English. In these cases, I needed to rely on the in-rmation that was given by the interpreter. The translation processf the data may have also had some influence on the data itself.ome measures were taken to try to keep the data as original asossible. The interpretation and the translation of the data wereiscussed with the interpreter. The interpreter was in charge ofranslating the questionnaire responses into Finnish. The sameterpreter also participated in all the activities during the trip andence she knew the contexts the responses referred to. In addition,he same interpreter was present during the interviews when theest customers talked about the trip and in this way some possiblynclear issues could be clarified from the participants. Theeporting of the participant observations was made in Finnish andhe results were translated by the author. In addition, the translateditations were checked by the colleagues of the author and a pro-ssional interpreter. However, multiple cross-checking of all theritten material was not carried out.Future research should focus on examining the experiences of
lso using an ethnographic approach in other NSD cases in tourism.ecause using this approach in NSD is new it would also be bene-cial to engage in a deeper analysis of differences, similarities, andhe pros and cons of customer involvement methods especiallycussing on experiential services.
Bitner, M. J.roundings
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Vitae Henna Konu is a project manager at the Centre forTourism Studies at the University of Eastern Finland. Shehas a lot of experience in different tourism research anddevelopment projects. Her research interests are in servicedevelopment, customer involvement, consumer/touristexperiences, experiential services, and wellbeing and na-
6
ture tourism. She is currtation on the customedevelopment.
ently writing her doctoral disser-r's role in experiential service
Article 2
DEVELOPING NATURE-BASED TOURISM PRODUCTS WITH CUSTOMERS BY UTILIZING THE DELPHI METHOD Konu, H. (2015). Developing nature-‐‑based tourism products with customers by utilizing the Delphi method. Tourism Management Perspectives, 14(April 2015), 42-‐‑54. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2015.03.003 Reprinted with kind permission from Elsevier.
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this study is to assess the suitability and opportunities for utilising the Delphi method in the tourismxamining the applicability of the method in data collection and customer involvement for differentnew service development (NSD). This is done by introducing anNSD case aiming tofind and evaluateture tourismproducts. Datawas collected by using twoDelphi rounds and the suitability of themeth-luated for selected criteria and describing the type of information that was gained during the process.
elphi methodew service development
e results shthe data colle
ow that the Delphi method suites customer involvement in the front-end stages of NSD well andcted provides rich information especially for service concept and service system development.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
onsumer involvementsitut ax-coo doetidendflecd toe oas nconndnt kve aandfocus. AlasLagfocomefortualieshurisnd Laseeree re
. Introduction
Previous studies have identified several benefits of customer involve-ent in new service development (NSD) for companies including en-anced competitive advantage, boosted public relations, understandingf customer needs, enhanced development of customer relationships, re-ucedmarket failures, acceleratedNSDprocesses and higher new servicecceptance rates (e.g. Alam, 2002; Enkel, Kausch, & Gassmann, 2005;riffin & Page, 1996; Gruner & Homburg, 2000; Lagrosen, 2005;agnusson, Matthing, & Kristensson, 2003; Matthing, Sanden, &dvardsson, 2004; Olson, Walker, & Ruekert, 1995; Sandberg, 2007;on Hippel, 2001). It is also argued that customer involvement is espe-ially useful in the front-end stages of the innovation process (idea gen-ration, idea screening and concept development stages of NSD) becauseese stages are the most information intensive (Alam, 2002, 2006;runer & Homburg, 2000; Zahay, Griffin, & Fredricks, 2004). However,revious studies have shown that customers are usually involved in theter stages of the innovation process for instance when testing a nearlynished product for sale and marketing (Prahalad & Santos, 2009).Depending on the level of interaction in the NSD process a customer
ay play an active or passive role (Hjalager & Nordin, 2011). The infor-ation customers can contribute also depends on the context and situ-tion (Edvardsson, Kristensson, Magnusson, & Sundström, 2012).dvardsson et al. (2012) use two different dimensions to elaborateur different service-related customer conditions, namely, the use situ-tion and the resource context. According to them a customermay pro-ide information either inside (in situ) or outside the use situation (ex
situ), and allfine a contexsituations. Ea person wh(Edvardssonveloped fourThe correspotion), The renot connectetext from thdreamer (hlearned theknowledge avide differemay also ha
Hjalageris a need toandmethodthat are seenAlam, 2002;studies thatvolving custamount of ininsight is ac(Nijssen & Lcially in a toKomppula avelopment cbility of diff(2012) havE-mail address: [email protected].
ations happen either in-context or ex-context. They de-s a resource constellation available to customers in usentext means that the information can be gained fromes not have a direct experience from an actual contextal., 2012). Based on these Edvardsson et al. (2012) de-al types of customers as a source of information, namelyent (has experience in a real service context and situa-tive practitioner (has experience in a service context,real-life situation), The tester (has learned service con-utside, testing simulated real-life situation) and Theot been a part of real-life value-creating situation,
text from outside). Hence the informants with differentinformation about the context and situation may pro-inds of information for NSD purposes. The informantdifferent role in diverse NDS phases.Nordin (2011) state that in the tourism industry theres on topics related to user-driven innovation practicesthough several studies have discussed diverse methodsbeing suitable for acquiring customer information (e.g.rosen, 2005; von Hippel, 1986), there are only a fewus on development and assessment of methods for in-rs (Edvardsson et al., 2012). Additionally, only a limitedmation is available about the methods of how customerly acquired in real cases of service development praxisout, 1995, cited in von Koskull & Fougére, 2011), espe-m and hospitality context. One exception is a study byassila (2014) in which they evaluate actual service de-s from the tourism industry by comparing the applica-nt customer involvement methods. Edvardsson et al.viewed and categorised methods used in customer
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volvement in NSD, but most of the studies they use as examples areom technology and manufacturing industries.To the author's knowledge there are no studies that have examinedapplied a Delphi method in a new service development context inspitality and tourism. The Delphi method is usually used when them is to collect subjective judgments on issues or problems for whichpreviously researched or documented information is available (HsuSandford, 2010). Hence it can be assumed that the method wouldit the idea generation phase of NSD well, where the goal is to getw ideas as a basis for the service development.The aimof this study is to assess the suitability and opportunities pro-
de by the Delphi method in the tourism sector by examining the appli-bility of the method in data collection and customer involvement forfferent purposes in NSD. The applicability and usefulness are analysedusing several criteria adapted fromprevious studies:mode of custom-information (Edvardsson et al., 2012), managerial criteria (KomppulaLassila, 2014), and purpose, stage, intensity, and mode of involvementlam, 2002). In addition emphasis is placed on evaluating what kind offormation is gained through the process. The information gained ande Delphi process itself are evaluated by using the critical issues of Del-i and these are discussed in an NSD context.This study is a part of a wider tourism development project aimingdevelop nature tourism products for a hiking area. The paper de-ribes the overall NSD case, but it concentrates on examining the firstases of anNSDprocess– idea generation and evaluation – inmore de-il. The study aims to make a contribution to the tourismmanagementerature providing an empirical example of how consumers arevolved in NSD in the tourism industry. Applying the idea ofvardsson et al. (2012) in this study the context refers to the destina-on (hiking area) and the situation to the consumption/developmentocess of nature tourism.The paper is structured as follows: first, the theoretical backgroundthe Delphi method and its usage in tourism andmanagement studiese presented. Thereafter a description of the case is provided followedthe report of the data and findings. Finally, the findings and suitabil-of themethod are discussed, and theoretical andmanagerial implica-ns are described.
Delphi in tourismmarketing and management studies
1. Characteristics of Delphi
Delphi is amethod that is used in exploratory qualitative research andutilised for soliciting opinions from experts about novel ideas or com-ex problems by conducting several questionnaires and controlled feed-ck (Day & Bobeva, 2005; Donohoe & Needham, 2009; von Bergner &hmann, 2014). Themethodwas first developed in 1948 formilitary in-lligence activity, later to be deployed for development by the Rand Cor-ration in a period from 1950 to 1963 (Donohoe & Needham, 2009;elmer, 1966; Hsu & Sandford, 2007). Delphi studies becamemore pop-ar in the mid-1960s for forecasting purposes (Hsu & Sandford, 2010).rrently the Delphi is regarded as a legitimatemethodology, which ear-r was questioned in terms of precision and accuracy, but today the dis-urse has shifted to its methodological application and refinementonohoe & Needham, 2009). According to Gupta and Clarke (1996)e number of Delphi studies peaked starting from the middle of the80s and it has sustained its position from the 1970s onwards.Traditionally the Delphi method entails interactive and systematic
recasting relying on a panel of experts and their opinions, but it hasso been used in planning, issue identification/prioritisation and frame-ork/strategy development (Day & Bobeva, 2005). In the words ofupta and Clarke (1996, 185) the method is “a qualitative, long-rangerecasting technique, that elicits, refines, and draws upon the collectiveinion and expertise of a panel of experts”. Miller (2006) describes thefference between the Delphi technique and a common survey by say-g that the Delphi technique aims to address “what could/should be”
and the comSandford, 20eral differenternatives, ejudgements(Hsu & Sand
As a Delpferent applicsical Delphi(Keeney, 20lists differencan be categ2011) as thenew serviceselecting postead of gainincludes simround that2011). In thwithin an insubjective in1979; Turoffadigm fits thviews and suavailable (se
The maintured, repetiDonohoe & NArmbruster,ciples of the
Anonymimethod as iSandford, 20the entire prally facilitateusing electro2007). The Dbased on thethe same ex2009; Hsu &method incluplifying quesrounds. It is aflow is manano direct inf2009; Pandztimations anthe process r
A DelphBobeva (200Donohoe anconsensus.Needham, 20cessful Delpexecuted. Intion of the presults generGupta and C“Delphi's goabut simply toble on a givenThe overall rfirst stage ofperts”whoseall, the methvolved most
H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2
n survey tries to identify “what is” (see also Hsu &The Delphi technique can be utilised for achieving sev-als, including determining and developing possible al-oring or exposing assumptions that lead to differentnerating consensus, and educating the respondents, 2010).tudy does not necessarily aim to gain a consensus, dif-ns of the Delphi method are used including e.g. a Clas-odified Delphi, Decision Delphi and Policy DelphiKeeney, Hasson, & McKenna, 2011). Keeney (2009)es of Delphi and their main characteristics. This studyed as a Decision Delphi (Keeney, 2009; Keeney et al.,is to gain information to support decisions related toelopment (finding new service ideas, evaluating andial service/product ideas to be developed further) in-consensus on certain issue. The Decision Delphi usuallyprocess as a Classical Delphi, including an open firstitates idea generation (Keeney, 2009; Keeney et al.,udy the Delphi technique is seen as being positionedretative paradigm as it is viewed and qualitative andture (e.g. Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons, 2001; Rauch,5). According to Engles and Kennedy (2007) this par-cision Delphi well as its goals are to examine differentrt decision-making by identifying all the possibilitieso Keeney et al., 2011).ibutes of the Delphi are that it is an anonymous, struc-, iterative and reflexive process (Day & Bobeva, 2005;ham, 2009; Hsu & Sandford, 2007; Jung-Erceg, Pandza,reher, 2007; Pandza, 2008). These act as the basic prin-hod (Pandza, 2008).seen as one of the primary characteristics of the Delphin reduce the effect of dominant individuals (Hsu &. The anonymity of the experts is maintained durings (Donohoe & Needham, 2009). Confidentiality is usu-the geographical dispersion of the experts and also by
communications (Day & Bobeva, 2005; Hsu & Sandford,hi process is also iterative and repetitive and this ismber of rounds of questions applied in the study ands are asked the same questions (Donohoe & Needham,dford, 2007, 2010; Pandza, 2008). In other words, thean iterative processwhichmakes it possible to ask am-s related to the topics that come upduring the previousa structured process whichmeans that the informationand coordinated by the researcher and hence there isation flow among the experts (Donohoe & Needham,08). The experts are also able to comment, and give es-inions about the results from previous rounds makingxive (Donohoe & Needham, 2009; Pandza, 2008).udy usually includes three key stages. Day andistinguish exploration, distillation and utilisation, andedham (2009) mention preparation, convergence andy authors (e.g. Day & Bobeva, 2005; Donohoe &Miller, 2001) emphasise that in order to conduct a suc-udy the procedure needs to be carefully planned andfirst stage the most important and critical part is selec-ipants because it is directly related to the quality of the(Donohoe & Needham, 2009; Hsu & Sandford, 2007).
e (1996, 186) refer to Gutierrez (1989) by stating thatnot to elicit a single answer or to arrive at a consensus,in as many high-quality responses and opinions as possi-e(s) from a panel of experts to enhance decisionmaking”.ts depend on the experts chosen for the panel. So in theDelphi process it is important to define the sorts of “ex-inions are desirable and set the selection criteria. All inrings forth future visions of those experts who are in-vely in the panel and most actively give their opinions
4342–54
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n the topic under examination. In this phase the research problem andtatements need to be defined, as well as preparing the set of question-aires and supporting letters/material (Day & Bobeva, 2005; Donohoe &eedham, 2009). The phase also includes a pilot study (Day & Bobeva,005) or a Delphi round one (Donohoe & Needham, 2009).In the second phase the actual Delphi rounds are implemented (Day
Bobeva, 2005; Donohoe & Needham, 2009). The number of roundsan vary from two to ten (Lang, 1994). Each round needs to have an ob-ctive, around which the content of the survey must be built (Day &obeva, 2005). Rounds also include monitoring the attrition rate,nalysing the questionnaire responses and comments and preparing aummary report (Day & Bobeva, 2005; Donohoe & Needham, 2009). Ine third and final stages the analysis of the results and the final reportrewritten. The stage also includes reflecting on the experiences gainedom the Delphi process and applying the results and the experience inractice (Day & Bobeva, 2005).
.2. Strengths and critical issues of Delphi
Numerous benefits are associated with the Delphi method. One bigdvantage of theDelphi technique is that it can beused to gather subjec-ve judgements from panellists on issues that have not previously beensearched orwhen there is no documented information available (HsuSandford, 2010). The multiple rounds make it possible for the partic-ants to reflect on their responses and also provide an opportunity toodify them (Hsu & Sandford, 2010). Innovative thinking is also en-ouraged, especially in the situations where the Delphi study attemptsforecast future possibilities (Hsu & Sandford, 2010). Other benefitsentioned are that the method is suited for forecasting uncertain fac-rs, it's anonymous, it's dependant on expert judgement, it's not limit-d by narrow expert definitions, it's effective and efficient, it's reliablend outcomes can be generalised, it's non-linear by design, and it's in-ightful (Donohoe & Needham, 2009).
The Delphi also has its limitations and there are critical issues. Theelphi has been criticisedmainly related to five areas: the lack of univer-al guidelines, the size of the expert panel, implications due to the lack ofnonymity, expert opinion, and level of consensus (Keeney et al., 2011).he lack of universal guidelines rises from the fact that Delphi has beenpplied in several studies and hence there are numerous variations e.g.relation to format and implementation. The lack of guidance in theelphi process has influenced the technique's scientific respectabilityKeeney et al., 2011). However, there are some general rules whichim to add confidence including, for example, that the Delphi shouldave at least two rounds (Day & Bobeva, 2005). One critical aspect isat a Delphi study fails to gain consensus. However, as mentioned al-ady in Section 2.1, not all Delphi studies aim to gain consensus. Never-eless, if the goal is to obtain consensus, there is a lack of definition, inany cases, for the acceptable level of consensus (Keeney et al., 2011).There is no general agreement about the size of expert panel, and the
uggestions for panel size differ from under 15 to thousands of partici-ants (Keeney et al., 2011). Authors have discussed whether a largeumber of respondents enhance the reliability of the study andwhethere results of small sample panels can be generalised or not (Cochran,983; Keeney et al., 2011). According to Turoff (2006) the focus shoulde on the varieties of experts in the panel instead of the number ofanellists, as it is important that all the relevant perspectives are includ-d. Because there is no general consensus about the sample size it issually based on the goals of the study, design selected and resourcesat are available (Keeney et al., 2011).The lack of anonymity may be considered one of the problems of the
elphi method. In addition, anonymity as such can also be seen as aeakness because it may cause non-disclosure, or may mean thatanellists do not take responsibility for the results (Sackman, 1975;eicher, 2007). Keeping the anonymity of the panellists during the pro-
essmay be problematic depending how the Delphi study is managed. Inany cases at least the researcher knows the panel members and their
responses (Kare alreadybdents are bu
The selecthe Delphi s2007; Keeneof defining wwhat the pa“expert” is trphi studies (cussions andsome otheror informedThe critiquethe term, wabout the is(e.g. Bowlinmonly appliis criticism oderived frombeen quite vdents that arownnetworsample (Powbased on thet al., 2011).
In additihave also beod can be timbust feedbaallows reseaence on thehave to madare equivaleplanning ofneed to makinternal andlywell balanshould be teset. It is impning of the r
2.3. Applicati
The Delpincluding heies, as well aDonohoe &managemenous fields, foneeds assess& Sandford,used surprisused to gainproblems, so
In tourismriety of tourtroduce a lishave identificasting andor framewotype the Delket, achievescenarios (eBergner & Loor refining a
4 H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2
ey et al., 2011). However, some online Delphi systemsin such away that the researcher knowswho the respon-he cannot connect the responses to individual panellists.of the panellists is seen as being the most critical part ofmethod (Donohoe & Needham, 2009; Hsu & Sandford,
t al., 2011). The problem usually lies with the difficultyan expert is, how the panel members are selected ands degree of expertise is (Keeney et al., 2011). The wordionally used when panel members are described in Del-ney et al., 2011). However, there have been a lot of dis-bates whether the term is correct or whether there bes for respondents e.g. such as advocate (Turoff, 1970)ividual/advocate (Goodman, 1987; McKenna, 1994).electing the experts highlights the loose application ofmay lead to include individuals that have knowledge
, but cannot necessarily be viewed as being an expert997). To overcome this issue two approaches are com-self-assessment and sample criteria, even though thereth these approaches. The selection criteria are normallye purpose of the study and sometimes the criteria have(Keeney et al., 2011). This has led to selection of respon-
.g. easily available such as experts from the researcher'st is stated that the Delphi is not dependent on a statistical, 2003) and thus the representativeness is evaluatedalities of panellists, not the size of the panel (Keeneyis case too, there is no single correct sampling procedure.o the above mentioned issues some other challengesisted. According to Hsu and Sandford (2010) the meth-consuming and low response rates may jeopardise ro-The process of editing and summarising feedbackrs to impose their own views,whichmay have an influ-ticipants' responses in other rounds, and assumptionshat the Delphi participants' knowledge and expertiseDonohoe and Needham (2009) emphasise the carefulDelphi process. According to them the researchersre that the panel expertise should be established withxternalmeasures. The panel should also be purposeful-at the outset and throughout the process, the questionsand critical questionnaire return deadlines need to be
nt that these issues are already considered at the begin-arch process.
f the Delphi method
ethod has been used in different areas and disciplines, governmental, social, environmental and leisure stud-usiness and industrial research (Day & Bobeva, 2005;dham, 2009; Gupta & Clarke, 1996) and also in someudies (e.g. Scott, 2000). It has also been applied in vari-stance, in programme planning, policy determination,nt, and resource utilisation (Gupta & Clarke, 1996; Hsu7). According to Pandza (2008) the Delphi has beenly little in management studies, even though it can beknowledge and opinions of industry experts to identifyons and challenges that are economically relevant.udies the Delphi has been used to find answers to a va-research problems. Donohoe and Needham (2009) in-of Delphi studies made in the tourism sector and theythe two most common application types, namely fore-e identification and/or prioritisation, as well as conceptevelopment. In the previously mentioned applicationstudies aim to generate theory, assess the tourismmar-nsensus for future events or identify alternative futureKaynak & Marandu, 2006; Solnet et al., 2013; vonann, 2014). In the latter the goal is usually in developingory or conceptual model and its components (e.g. Choi
42–54
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Sirakaya, 2006; Miller, 2001; Tsaur, Lin, & Lin, 2006). In addition, tove a few concrete examples, the Delphi method has been used to de-lop a recommendation system for tourist attractions (Yeh & Cheng,15), assessing the potential of natural resources in tourism (Lee &ing, 2008), and it has also been utilised to support the innovationd rebranding process of certain forms of tourism in a particular areajalager et al., 2011). Some of these studies can also be regarded asanagement studies.Most of the Delphi studies that are focussed on new service develop-
ent (NSD) are from thefield of technology andmanufacturing (e.g. LinLee, 2011; Scott, 2000;Wei & Chang, 2008). These studies do not nec-sarily focus on the actual NSD process, but more on the managementsues of related to it. For instance, Scott (2000) identifies issues that se-cted experts think are important as unsolved new product develop-ent or management problems for high-tech companies. However, toe best of the author's knowledge, the Delphimethod has not been ap-ied to new service development in the tourism sector. In this study them is not forecasting as such, but the goal is future oriented. The pro-ss of new service development starts from the idea generationase, meaning that potential ideas and suggestions are mapped for fu-re services. As the Delphi is used to gather subjective judgementsompanellists regarding issues aboutwhich no information is availablesu & Sandford, 2010) it is seen as being suitable for the purpose of thisudy. In addition, the multiple rounds used in Delphi make it possibletest and evaluate the new ideas among the panellists.
Developing nature tourism products for a hikingea — case description
An organisation responsible for Finnish protected and recreationeas started a development project aiming to profile Finnish Hikingreas based on regional uniqueness and strengths as outdoor “activityrks”. The idea was that people could do different nature based activi-s all year round in these activity parks. Ruunaa Hiking Area is one ofese areas to be developed. In the last few years the visitor numbersthe hiking areas have decreased and the objective of the developmentork is to halt this negative trend. Hence the purpose of the develop-ent work is to create benefits for all stakeholders, e.g. by increasinge economic benefits in the area, attracting more visitors and new en-epreneurs to the area. This case presents one part of the work carriedt in the Ruunaa area, namely how new nature tourism products andrvices are developed by involving current and potential customersthe Ruunaa Hiking Area.The Ruunaa Hiking Area is located in eastern Finland close to thessian border (Fig. 1). According to the Finnish Forest and Parkrvice (2013) the number of visitors to the Ruunaa Hiking Area came84,500 in 2012, which makes the Ruunaa Hiking Area the most pop-ar hiking area in Finland (in Finland the protected and outdoor recre-ion areas are divided into four categories namely national parks,king areas, nature reserves and other areas).The start for the whole process came from the organisation responsi-
e for the management of the Ruunaa Hiking Area. In addition the busi-sses that are actively operating in the areawere involved in the processorganising several discussionmeetings. In one of themeetings the pos-
bilities and examples of how customers can be involved in new servicevelopmentwas introduced by a researcher. Thiswas seen as an appeal-g option for businesses and they found that this kind of informationould be useful for them and support their product development pro-sses. Additionally important from the perspectives of business and thecal area management organisation was the idea that the attractivenessthe Ruunaa area as a destination could be improved if new productsd services are developed. In the discussions, potential themes for theoducts came up and the supposed themes emphasised forest-/nature-sed wellbeing tourism products and adventure tourism products.The actual NSD startedwith an open call for product developers that
as launchedon different e-channels such as Facebook, Twitter,mailing
lists andwebIn this studyNSD, especiaod (circled intogether witarea, entreprAt the momproduct test
4. Data and
4.1. Designin
In designcording to Dbe made follthis study th
The choicaim was to gtwo Delphi rconducted tothe ideas. Th
4.2. The pane
The selecresults depenaim is to devhence the cuwhich kindsditional waytion criteria2009) does(1990, citedidentified inthey presentcloseness anof expert ancontext the eness is seenand the expecommunitymon experienced closenesssultants andof a conceptlevel of invoVittersø, & D
Four reqZiglio (1996under investtime to partstudy the evthe tourists aideas to formas being thethat touristscause they wwilling to indesire are lstudy the toutourists to thbased touris
One probthere is notapproached
H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2
s. Thewhole development process is described in Fig. 2.focus is on the idea generation and idea testing phase ofhe part that is implemented by using the Delphi meth-). The overall development process is being carried oute organisation responsible for the development of theurs of the area, and involving customers in the process.the next phase of the development will be external
ings
Delphi study
Delphi studyvarious criteria should be considered. Ac-nd Bobeva (2005) choices in the study design need tong seven criteria, each of which has variety choices. Inlphi design choices are presented in Table 1.ere made based on the goals of the study, in which theer new ideas for NSD and test the collected ideas. Theds were built to support this goal: the first round waslect the ideas and the second round to test and evaluateher choices made are discussed in more detail below.
experts
of panellists is a critical part of the Delphimethod as then the people included in the panel. In this case study thep new tourism products together with customers anders are seen as being the experts required for saying
roducts and services they are interested in. Thus the tra-nding and choosing the experts for the study (e.g. selec-sented in a tourism context by Donohoe & Needham,apply in this case. According to Needham and de Loëonohoe and Needman, 2009, p. 428) experts can be
ms of their closeness to the matter or a problem andby using a continuum, where at one end lies subjectivethe other objective closeness. The traditional definitionspertise include objective closeness and in the tourismrts are in this case tourism researchers. Subjective close-aracterize evolving definitions of expert and expertise,n this case are tourism stakeholders (e.g. tourists or hostbers)whohave deep experiential knowledge or hands-etween objective and subjective closeness lies mandat-ere the experts are, for instance, tourismmanagers, con-cymakers. It is has been said that the personal relevancervice under development for a customer influences theent with an object, situation or action (Prebensen,
2013).ments for expertise have been outlined by Adler andamely experience and knowledge with the issuesion, willingness and capacity to participate, sufficientate and effective communication skills. In this caseing definition of expert and expertise is applied andeen as being experts that can bring new and innovativestarting point for NSD. In addition, tourists can be seenevaluators of the attractiveness of the ideas. It is argueddmoney, timeand effort travellingduringholidays be-to (Prebensen et al., 2013) and hence people who aretheir own resources on something that they like andto engage in co-production (Etgar, 2008). In this
s taking part in the development process are potentialea, as they are expected to have experience of nature-activities and/or the area to be developed.for selecting the informants for a Delphi panel is thatcessarily a clear definable community that can bey & Bobeva, 2005). This is the case also in this study:
4542–54
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Fig. 1. Location of Ruunaa.(Source Google Maps)
46 H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2015) 42–54
s there were no ready identified group of tourists that could be in-olved in the process, theDelphi panellists were recruited by organisingn open call for product developers. It can be assumed that people thatign in to the process are committed to it as they are interested in thepic. It is also stated that people are more likely to become involvedthe Delphi process if they feel that the outcome of the study benefitsem (Hasson, Keeney, & McKenna, 2000, cited in Day & Bobeva, 2005,. 109).The call opened in the beginning of May 2013. In the call no detailed
riteria for participating were set, but the respondents were supposed toe interested in developing nature tourism in the area: “…Now you havechance to give ideas and suggestions about the kinds of services you wishhave in the region.We are looking for people that have already visited the
rea, but also people that have not been in the area before. If you are inter-sted in developing nature tourism please sign in as a product developerere (link to the survey form) by 19th of May!” The call was launched bysing a variety of electronic channels that were thought to be used byurists interested in nature-based tourism (Facebook sites, national out-oor recreationwebsites, Twitter,mailing lists, aswell as onwebsites be-nging to a variety of organisations, DMOs and businesses) and bytilising a diverse range of stakeholders (the organisation responsibler the hiking area, a research institute, the regional destination market-g organisation and the business network involved in the process).As the goal was to involve potential customers for nature-based
urism all the channels that were used to spread the open call were
connected tarea to be dsigning in foabout the issBy the 19thpeople signalso include(signed byFinnish speation (e-mail
The formto Ruunaa, pactivities relamation andspondents (43 years. Thto 55-year-ofore and 51%spondents hhad one or mof the responnormal livinenvironmenspondents hdays and ove
ture-based tourism, outdoor recreation and/or to theloped. Hence it can be supposed that the individualse development process have experience or knowledgeunder investigation. The callwas in Finnish and English.ay 103 people signed in as product developers. Two
n after that (during the 20th of May) and they weren the study. Only one person was English speakingg the English form) and the rest of the 104 wereg. Two of the responses were missing contact informa-resses) so they were excluded from the study.d for signing up included questions about previous visitsble hobbies that are connected to nature and also otherto nature and the outdoors and tourism. Also basic infor-act information were collected. Little over half of the re-%) were female. The mean age of the respondents wasgest age group were 26 to 35-year-olds followed by 46Most of the respondents had visited the Ruunaa area be-d visited the area at least four times. Only 20% of the re-ot visited the area. Almost 90% of all respondents alsoe hobbies that related to nature or the outdoors. Manyts did outdoor or nature related activities outside theirvironment and almost 60% travelled outside their livingthe activities at least once a month. Over 60% of the re-lso been on nature and outdoors related or activity holi-% said that nature and the outdoors were important for
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47H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2015) 42–54
em (for 64.8% it was very important) when theywere selecting a travelstination. The profile of the respondents indicated that the people whogned up to be product developers were rather nature and outdoors ori-ted and interested innature related activities andnature tourism.Manythem also had quite a lot experience of the hiking area for which thewproductswere being developed. Hence, the people enrolled on prod-t development had the kind of expertise that was required.
3. Round 1: gathering and analysing the data
The first Delphi round is commonly referred as the “scoping round”d it is used to solicit information and reactions from invited participantsay & Bobeva, 2005; Donohoe & Needham, 2009; Hsu & Sandford,10). Traditionally the first Delphi round starts with open-ended ques-ns (Hsu & Sandford, 2010) and this was the case also in this study.TheDelphi studywas implemented by organising twoDelphi roundsing an online eDelphi tool (eDelfoi.fi). It is a research programmesed on the Delphi expert method and it was developed in co-eration with the Future Research Centre of the Turku School of Eco-mics (Futunet,Metodix, & Internetix, 2010). The toolmakes it possiblemanage a panel by sending e-mails to panellists, using the platform assurvey tool (several different rounds and queries can be added),
drawing sumpants remainresponses toof panellistsguarantee thhad any quee-mail (e-ma
The objecdoor tourismstarted withvelop new seAs the goalpanellists wthat the areathey wouldtested by senand also to fo(people interquestions wthe questionround questsought by as
• What wou
Fig. 2. The service development process for new nature
ble 1
day in Ruunaa• What would bBoth of the qusub-questions:
• What would th• What is the ro• What kinds of
e Delphi design choices in the study of nature tourism NSD.
Criteria Choice for nature tourism NSD study
Purpose of the study Exploration and testingNumber of rounds TwoParticipants Heterogeneous groupMode of operation RemoteAnonymity of panel FullCommunication media ComputerizedConcurrency of rounds Sequential
ry reports, sharing material etc. All the panel partici-onymous and even the researcher cannot connect theividual panellists. However, the researcher sees the listo answered the questions. This kind of procedure willnonymity of the panellists. However, if the panellistss about the panel they could contact the researcher bydress was in the e-mails the panellists received).of round one was to get new ideas for nature and out-oducts for the Ruunaa Hiking Area. The questionnairetroduction where the panellists were welcomed to de-es and encouraged to share their opinions and interests.to get ideas in the NSD idea generation phase, thesked to be creative and not just focus on the servicesady has, but to freely describe what things and servicesto experience. The questions for the first round wereg them to five experts involved in tourism developmentndividuals that could be regarded as potential panellistsd in nature and outdoor tourisms) to checkwhether thenderstandable. Based on the comments of the testersere slightly modified. In the final version of the firstaire new ideas for tourism product development werethe following two open-ended questions:
our dream wellbeing, nature and outdoor related holi-be like?e your dream adventure holiday in Ruunaa be like?
estionswere followed bymore detailed guidelines and
e holiday include?le of nature and the outdoors in this experience?experiences would you like to have?
ism products.
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You can very freely describe the things you connect to your dreamwellbeing/adventure holiday (e.g. activities you want to have, food,accommodation preferences, relaxation and people you are travellingwith).
The invitation for the Delphi panel was sent via the eDelphi tool. The03 potential panellists (the ones that signed up to be product devel-pers) received an invitation to sign into the system and answer theuestions. As Table 3 presents, altogether 60 panellists answered theuestions (the response rate being 57.3%). The responses were ratheriversified some of them written in story form and some of them justiving listings of services or things that they wanted the holiday to con-in. As the data made it possible to draw different kinds of product de-criptions a narrative analysis was used. In a narrative analysis asearcher organises and interprets the empirical data in such a wayat the results construct one or more narratives, which are theniscussed and interpreted (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). In a narrativenalysis the focus can be on meaning, structure, interactional contextnd/or performance (Elliot, 2005; Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008;iessman, 2002). In this study, as the aimwas to form different producteme narratives based on the responses, the responses were analysedy focusing on the meaning. Examining the meaning means that thenalysis focuses on the content of the narrative, namely on issues,emes and patterns (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). The empiricalata in this case was organised by using thematic analysis in which dif-rent themes of the responses from the first Delphi round were exam-ed and based on the themes storylines were developed. Hence, in thisase the narratives developed are constructed by the researcher and theonstruction of the narratives formed a central part of the analysis (see.g. Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). Altogether nine thematic tourismroducts/product themes were formed based on the analysis (seeppendix 1 for examples):
. Togetherness and activities for all the family
. Enjoying the natural environment, relaxing and pampering
. Independently outdoors/in the wild
. Hiking, physical exercise and a dash of luxury
. Strength from the natural environment
. Towards adventures
. Actively outdoors
. Fishing at rapids
. Speed and exciting situations.
In addition to the narrative analysis, a thematic analysis was carriedut to collect comments and suggestions related to services and activi-es. The comments received were categorised into six themes, namelyccommodation, activities, services, relaxation and pampering, food,nd service environment. Under each theme the wishes of the cus-mers were collected in relation to, for example, what kinds of accom-odation they would prefer and what kinds of things they wouldonnect with relaxation and pampering. The summary report foround 1 included results from the thematic analysis and the narrativetories (thematic product descriptions).
.4. Round 2: gathering and analysing the data
The objective of the second round was to evaluate the interest andppeal, and also get critical opinions regarding the thematic products/roduct themes created from the panellists' responses in the firstund by narrative analysis. The second round aimed to obtain concretend detailed information about how interesting the developed servicetheme) products are to the respondents, what kinds of feelings they in-oke, what kinds of improvements are required and forwhom the panelee the products and service modules being suitable for. This aimed toet answers and concrete solutions e.g. for product cards. It was thoughtat evaluating all nine products would be too much for the panellists,
so they wermost interes
• What kind• What is go• What is ba• Would the• Who is the
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Based onproduct theproduct bye.g. related tnents of thelating the nproducts webe argued tbeing themoon the prodThe summaproducts anon the numb
5. Evaluatin
The purpstudy as suctourism.Henand evaluate2002; Edvardering the cricriteria usedNSD. All of th
5.1. Purpose
The purpprocess forand evaluatein order to ding the proccomments aments andproducts, thand commenamples of thcess by usinresults showthe paper beand suitabilition to the ingestions we
The condfor the develsome of the
Table 2Respondents of
Respondent
Have visitedPotential visiTotal numbe
8 H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2
ked to choose four thematic products they found theand describe:
feelings they get from the product?
r what would they improve?ke part in this kind of trip?oduct suitable for?
dents wanted they could evaluate more than just fourthe invitation was sent to the Delphi panellists via thetogether 37 panellists answered the questions, whichnse rate 61.7% (see Table 2).responses: the appeal and content of the products and
s were evaluated. The data was analysed product byg thematic analysis (positive and critical commentse content of the product/product theme, service compo-duct and price). The appeal was alsomeasured by calcu-ber of comments related to each product, and theranked based on the number of the comments. It canthe products commented on the most were seen asppealing because the panellistswere asked to comment/product themes that they found the most interesting.port was made based on the evaluations of individualevaluation of the appeal of the products partly based
of comments.
elphi in an NSD context
of this paper is not to present the results of the Delphit evaluate the usability of the Delphi method in NSD inhe collecteddatawas analysed so as to be able to describemethod based on the set criteria (adapted from Alam,n et al., 2012; Komppula & Lassila, 2014) and by consid-l aspects of the Delphi technique. Table 3 presents thevaluate the applicability of the Delphimethod in tourismriteria are discussed more detailed in following sections.
stage of involvement
of the case study was to involve customers in the NSDure-based tourism products and especially to collectw ideas for the process. A thematic analysis was mademinewhat kind of informationwas gained forNSD dur-Six themes were identified, namely new product ideas,suggestions related to the supply and facilities, com-estions, and critical insights related to the thematicpeal of the thematic products, potential target groups,n the thematic product descriptions. In Appendix 2 ex-formation that was received for the development pro-e Delphi method are summarised and presented. Theat the Delphi technique fitted well to the purpose ofse new product ideas were obtained and their appealere evaluated, also from a critical perspective. In addi-
mation that was expected, further information and sug-ceived related to other phases of NSD.ed Delphi rounds brought useful information especiallyent of service concepts and service process. In additionments and suggestions were connected to the service
42–54
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The data gaintive. This differsfrom the secondtion (e.g. von Bealso used to highwas a consciousrounds during thorder to get newucts. The commethe product narror not. Hence so
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Table 3Describing the Delphi method by selected criteria.
Delphi method
Purpose of involvement Service concept/service process developmentStage of involvement Idea generation and testingIntensity of involvement ModerateMode of involvement Delphi roundsStrengths of data collection New ideas and opinions, same people evaluating
the ideasChallenges of data collection Finding the right panellists and motivating them
to answer the questionnaires; guarantying theanonymity; time consuming
Challenges of data analysis Requires expertise, ample data, presenting theresults in a way that they support the decisionmaking in NSD process
H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2015)
stem. The data analysis led to several different thematic products andnce the businesses had plenty of options and opportunities to choosee ones that could be developed further. Even if the main aim was tot new ideas for NSD processes and evaluate these ideas, informationas also gained in relation to (current) supply and facilities, potentialrget groups, and the content of thematic product descriptions. In addi-n, the data provides information about customer needs and interests,the method is suitable for gathering subjective judgements (Hsu &ndford, 2010).
2. Intensity and mode of involvement
The Delphimethod, its characteristics and how the process is imple-ented in this case (all panellists being customers), do not support in-raction between all the stakeholders involved in NSD. Nevertheless,s iterative nature makes it possible for the panellists to comment one responses from other rounds. However, interaction between indi-dual panellists or with service providers does not exist. In the processe researcher acts as mediator between the panellists and transformse results into a form that businesses can use in their NSD processes.dditionally, the reporting and interpretation of the data are done bye researcher. However, the iterative process of the Delphi processakes it possible to circulate the responses and data analyses to thenellists and they can comment on the results and interpretations ofe researcher. This adds to the reliability of the interpretations and en-les the panellists to comment on and evaluate the summary of thehers' opinions and responses too.In this study two Delphi rounds were used. The first roundwas usedcollect new ideas for NSD and these ideas were then analysed andematic products/product themes were formed by using narrativealysis. The narrative stories (product ideas) acted as basis for the sec-d round in which the panellists were asked to evaluate the ideas andve both positive aspects and critical insights. The two rounds wereen as being efficient enough for the purpose of the study because de-iled information was gained to support the decisions related to newrvice development for the service providers.
3. Strengths and weaknesses of data collection and analysis
One advantage of a Delphi study is that it provides more detailed in-rmation compared e.g. to a basic questionnaire, as it makes possible tok the same respondents their opinions and evaluations of the results.uring the Delphi rounds panellist also has the possibility to changeeir minds and gives alternative evaluations. This is not possible if reg-ar survey procedures are applied. For example in this case, if a regularrvey was carried out to collect the new product ideas, the service
aspects regaThe fivem
universal guonymity, expThis study dbut it can btwo Delphistudy the aim2010) but cosion processconsensus isteed in this sDelphi procethe panellistknows whoresponses toproblem becget disclosur
As it has2009; Hsu &panellists plstudy will beno single rigused to descwere not verdevelopers whad experienwas not deciterested custperspectivesneous panelvaried slightit more oftentourism andmay benefitideas will emthe requirempanellist hadThe panelliswhich indicacapacity to pthe commun
TheDelpprocess. Henresearcher. Sto be carefulconducted away that the
5.4. Impleme
As there astudy is con
Number and expertiseof personnel
Labour intensive: trained personnel needed
Costs Reasonable cost, especially when implementedby using online channels
Type of customer information “The correspondent”/“The tester”
not have received the evaluations of the ideas by thets collected during the second round.ed during the process in this studywasmainly qualita-frommany of the Delphi studies where the data gainedround forward usually contains quantitative informa-rgner & Lohmann, 2014). In this study, ranking waslight the appeal of the thematic products. However, itdecision to ask open-ended questions in both of thee study to obtain the richest information possible inideas and develop the content of the thematic prod-nts related to the products differed dependingwhetherative represented the dream holiday of the respondentme of the respondents also brought forth very criticalg the thematic products/product themes.areas fromwhichDelphi has been criticized are lack ofnes, size of expert panel, implications of the lack on an-opinion, and level of consensus (Keeney et al., 2011).not discuss the universal guidelines on a general level,en to fulfil one of the general criteria by conductingds. As this study is categorised as a Decision Delphias not to find one consensus (see e.g. Hsu & Sandford,t and evaluate new service ideas to support NSD deci-ence, the critical discussion about what the level of
s not needed. The anonymity of the panellists is guaran-by using an online Delphi tool (eDelfoi) tomanage thehe online Delphi tool helps the researcher to managed send the invitations for each round. The researcherpanellists are but (s)he cannot connect the individualrespondents. In this case anonymity is not seen as a
e the aim of the study is not to gain consensus but toee Sackman, 1975; Weicher, 2007).highlighted in several studies (Donohoe & Needham,dford, 2007; Keeney et al., 2011) the selection of thea central role in Delphi technique as the results of theinions of the participants. It is also noted that there isay for selecting the panellists and several terms can bethem. In this study the selection criteria for panellistsht but the channels that were used to induce productchosen in a way that they would reach people whof the area and/or topic/context. The number of panellistbeforehand because itwas desirable to include all the in-rs and to involve them in the process to gain as manyossible and increase the chances of getting a heteroge-Turoff, 2006). The level of the expertise of the panellistssome of them hadmore experience of the area (visitedd some of them had more experience of nature-baseddoor activities. This heterogeneity of the respondentsresults as it can be expected that different opinions ande. Evaluating the expertise of the panellists by followingset by Adler and Ziglio (1996) it can be argued that theerience and knowledge of the issues under examination.gistered themselves voluntarily as product developersat the participants were willing, and had the time andipate the process. However, during the selection procession skills of the panellist could not be evaluated.chnique requires constant data analysis throughout thehe data analysis requires expertise and time from theral Delphi rounds also produce a lot of data that needsrocessed so that it enables the following rounds to bein the end the results should be presented in such antribute to the decision making processes.
ion in practice
everal issues that need to be considered when a Delphited, the technique is labour intensive and it requires
4942–54
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ersonnel/a researcher familiar with all the procedures needed. Theosts of conducting a Delphi may be considered quite reasonablehen online channels or tools are used tomanage the process. Howeverultiple Delphi rounds make the process longer and require time frome researcher. The costs of implementing a Delphi study may then beigher. Because of these facts itmight be thatmany tourism service pro-iders do not have sufficient resources such as know-how and the timequired to use the Delphi in their NSD.
.5. Type of customer information — context and situation
The Delphi method fits partially with the framework of Edvardssont al. (2012) as the method collects information that is in-context andsitu. In this mode a customer exists in a service use situation ortending to co-create value in order to fulfil a need — the customereing a correspondent (see Edvardsson et al., 2012). The Delphimethodlso has some similarities to the other method that Edvardsson et al.2012) have categorised under the “correspondent” mode, includingmpathic design, the lead-user method and the CUDIT experiments.hese methods have been used to gain new ideas and service solutionsr new or existing services as in this study where Delphi is used toather and evaluate new service ideas. The methods within this modere primarily beneficial in the front-end phases of NSD (Edvardssont al., 2012) and as this case proves the Delphi method can also besed efficiently to gather information for the purpose of finding neweas e.g. for service concepts. The customers that are included in theethods used as examples are general users or lead users. The leadsers are carefully selected individuals that identify the need and solu-ons in their natural context. Also in a Delphi study the selection pro-ess of the panellists plays a central role in order to implement auccessful study.
In this case the actual and potential customers were the ones thatere seen to have the best knowledge about what kinds of nature-ased and outdoor tourism services they wanted to have in future. Inrder to further discover “fresh” ideas not limited by informationbout the current products and services provided in the area, potentialustomers to the area were also to be included to the panel. This differsbit from the mode “correspondent” (Edvardsson et al., 2012), wheree assumption is that the customers have experiences of the serviceontext, as some of the panellists had not visited the Ruunaa Hikingrea before and did not have real experience of the resources available.owever, the potential customers did have experience of the consump-on of nature-based or outdoor tourism and nature related activitiesnd hence they could be categorised as “Testers”. One method canen be categorised under different modes which was also noted bydvardsson et al. (2012) when they said that the modes represent theeal types of typical users.The level of interactivity in the other studies categorised under
e “correspondent” mode varies and e.g. there is relatively lowteraction when empathic design is used (Edvardsson et al., 2012).n the other hand, the lead user method has quite a high degreef interaction which derives from the implementation of the studyy involving the lead users in a development team (Edvardssont al., 2012). TheDelphimethod differs from the lattermentionedmeth-d because of the anonymity criteria, which is also an advantage be-ause the participants can freely express their opinions without beingfluenced by others (Donohoe & Needham, 2009; Hsu & Sandford,010).
. Discussion and limitations
.1. Theoretical and methodological contribution
This paper contributes to the tourism service marketing andanagement literature by evaluating the usability of the Delphiethod in tourismNSD. The paper alsomakes a theoretical contribution
to NSD literamentmethotical exampcustomer oropment prothat the Defront-end sttors becauseformation esapproach shopinions of pinformationside.
In this stvices by invopinions areit has sometomers do nthat customethat are beincategorisedence, namelvice developservice thatwas carriedsumed thatHowever, wthe functionessarily as imbe argued ththeme/topicare developkinds of expthe particulathe statemeDelphi particstakeholdersand outcom
Several mcategoriseddata but thevolved (Edvusing dialogdents and nonature makeseveral phassuggestions.formation itactions (Edv
6.2. Manager
This studmanagerialthe Delphi sin relation tdeveloped. Tarea by addiand the orgbenefited frproducts ancollecting nspondents totential newwas then evaviders used
0 H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2
by assessing theDelphimethod as a customer involve-addition the novelty of the paper comes from the prac-
of developing nature-based tourism products in aed way by involving potential customers in the devel-s by utilising the Delphi technique. The results showi method is suitable for involving customers in theof the NSD process in the tourism and hospitality sec-conducted Delphi rounds provided a wealth of rich in-ially for the idea generation and evaluation phases. Thisthat it is valuable and important to pay attention to thential tourism demand and not just focus on the existingpinions that are available from the demand and supply
, the Delphi was implemented in order to develop ser-ng the customers in the process. Customer ideas andd in newproduct and service development even thoughs been found challenging e.g. by criticising that cus-ecessarily know what they want. However, it is noteday have very different levels of experience of the issueseveloped. For instance, Edvardsson et al. (2012) haveomers into three different groups based on their experi-ry experienced, ordinary and greenhorns. In new ser-nt it is essential to pay attention to the nature of theeing developed. The study by Edvardsson et al. (2012)in a technological services context, inwhich it can be as-nical experience and know-how plays a central role.experiential services such as tourism are developed,
spect of the service is naturally important, but not nec-rtant as experiential aspects of the service. Thus it canustomers who have experience and knowledge of thehave had experiences in the area in which the servicesare experts in that field because they well know whatnces they are looking for when they are travelling toestination or taking a nature-based trip. This supportsf Donohoe and Needham (2009) who argued that therly suites tourism research where participants (tourisme increasingly key contributors to the research process
ods that are used to involve customers in NSD can beimplex methods meaning that they are used to collectovide only a little or no feedback to the customers in-son et al., 2012). Edvardsson et al. (2012) recommendedmethods which also give information to the respon-st the service provider. The Delphi technique's iterativepossible for customers to contribute to the process inf NSD and also change and evolve their opinions andespondents are involved in the interpretation of the in-y help the service provider in prioritisation and takingsson et al., 2012).
mplications
tarted from a practical problem and hence it also haslications. In this case-study the aim of conductingy was to gain information to support decision makinghat kinds of nature-based tourism products should begoal was to increase the appeal of the Ruunaa Hikingewkinds of service offerings to the area. The businessessation responsible for the management of the areathe study as they gained new ideas for their tourismervices. However, the study did not focus just onideas for NSD, but also circulated the ideas for the re-evaluated. The information about the content of the po-ices and also the appeal of certain thematic productsted by the service providers in the area. The service pro-information (see Appendix 2) in their NSD processes to
42–54
crhesede
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coanabgegaco
prretuwpopr
6.
hastseorpetotoucextiopeorpathotHthpu
noHscThgain
tothususerbesuw
Examples from narrative analysis
Hiking, physical exercise and a dash of luxuryHiking and outdoor activities are a key part of my holiday. Myholiday also includes pampering that may come about by variousthings. The natural environment plays an important role in theholiday, especially its pristine and calm quality. Travel companionson the holiday would be people with similar interests and the overallatmosphere on the holiday would emphasise living in the moment:friends, an open fire, guitar and singing, the gentle lapping of water,dusk, shivers of cold as the sun sets, hot drinks from a wooden cup,quiet, messy hair and a face without make-up, laughter andcloseness, landscapes for the eyes to rest on.I want to spend part of my holiday hiking. The hiking may be eitherself-motivated or guided. On a guided tour, food is included in thefee. During the hiking trip, accommodation in a tent or a lean-towould be good, but after hiking I would also like to spend time ingood accommodation, which may also be a little ‘special’. Instead oftraditional cottage accommodation, I could spend my night in anigloo or, when the ground has thawed, in Ruunaa's specialaccommodation, a hotel room built on an old white-water raftingboat floating on the flowing water. It would be wonderful to fallasleep to the sound of waves lapping and you would be certain towake up refreshed in the morning.It would be nice to also try out other activities. I could, for example,go quietly canoeing, participate in a night-time hike, make handi-crafts from natural materials, collect herbs, watch birds, participate
51015) 42–54
eate more detailed service packages. The information gained alsolped them to make decisions on what kinds of product themesemed to be more interesting among customers and thus are worthveloping.As this was a starting point for the NSD processes, the development
ork is still ongoing. After choosing the most appealing thematic prod-ts (that included several service components) products under theseemes were developed. After the development of the more detailedurism packages and service modules these were first tested by usingelectronic survey thatwas targeted for widermarkets. The electronicestionnaire included three more detailed products/services devel-ed by the businesses of the area. Thewhole process continued by fol-wing the description in Fig. 2.In addition to the new service ideas the service providers gainedmments and suggestions on how to develop and improve the facilitiesd other services in the area. The responses also included informationout more general needs andmotivations of the respondents and sug-stions about potential target groups. Some of the respondents alsove comments and suggestions on how the product descriptionsuld be improved as well.All the suggestions and ideas were evaluated by the serviceoviders of the area and it was clear that not all the ideas may bealizable. Some of the ideaswere very innovative and new but their ac-al application in practice would be difficult or may not be possible
Appendix 1.
Narrative 1
H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2
ithout major investments. However, many of the suggestions were in horse-back trekking, ski or go walking with snowshoes. Whenneeded, all the activities would be provided in the gentle andgood-humoured care of service providers.After various activities, it would be wonderful to pamper yourself, forexample bathing in various types of saunas. A local tourism entre-preneur would offer a relaxing sauna evening during which I couldexperience bathing in a completely new kind of sauna world. Onoffer, there would be a traditional smoke sauna but also a bird's eyeview sauna built high in a tree. In the end, we would go to a saunafloating on the rapids from where you could take a refreshing swimin the rapids. A massage, outdoor hot tub and relaxing float in therapids would also be luxurious.Good food also plays an important part. The food would be healthy,organic or local and it could be enjoyed in a tepee or by a campfirewith people with similar interests. Local fish and game. It would benice to spend time around a campfire and participate in accompaniedsinging sessions and possibly listen to stories. I would love to hearstories about local attractions and matters. It would be really nice totalk with local people.Towards adventuresThis holiday is for having adventures according to one's own fitnessand skills. There are various kinds of adventure packages suitable fordifferent levels of fitness and ages. The natural environment offersexcellent preconditions for adventures and recreation in the naturalenvironment takes the centre stage. An adventure holidayparticularly emphasises physical exercise.The scale and level of activities within the adventures varies greatly.The most extreme adventure comprises the most challenging andlargest adventure track in Finland. The track is located amongbreath-taking scenery and it also crosses some rapids. This trackwould be for adults only and demanding enough for it to attractpeople even from abroad. In this adventure, you would also catchand prepare your own food in wild conditions. Everyone would catchand gut their own fish and prepare it for eating. It also includessurvivor-type activities, which teach you how to survive in the wil-derness with what the natural environment has to offer. These wil-derness skills could also be offered on a smaller scale.Other adventure activities would include free floating inwhite-water, traditional white-water rafting, swimming,rock-climbing, bungee jumping, horseback-riding, quad bike riding,large carnivore spotting, night-time trekking, orienteering in thedark and swimming. These activities would be well guided and con-sequently enthusiastic and skilled guides would have a great impor-tance. In addition, Ruunaa would offer local activities such as timberrafting and tar transport. Each day of an adventure holiday couldhave different activities. Some of the activities could also take placeduring the evening or night.In addition, an adventure holiday would include various playfulcompetitions with physical exercise-oriented control points. Onepossible competition could be a shortened “triathlon”, where youshould complete a fun route or track by running, climbing or biking.
ssible to adapt as such or after small modifications by the serviceovider.
3. Limitations and future research directions
This paper has also its limitations as it presents only one case thats used the Delphi method in NSD. This also differs from other Delphiudies as the experts in this study are customers and not tourism re-archers, representatives of destination marketing and managementganisations or other groups that have previously been regarded as ex-rts in tourism studies. As the aim was to develop new services forurists by involving them in the process, it can be argued that the cus-mers are the best experts capable of giving and evaluating new prod-t and service ideas. Hence this study presents a Delphi study that usesperts that have subjective proximity to the matter under investiga-n (see Needham& de Loë, 1990). In this study the panellists were ex-cted to have experience and knowledge about nature-based tourismoutdoor activities and/or about the area to be developed. Hence thenellists can be seen to represent a customer segment interested inese particular issues. It needs to be noted that customers havingher interests may have given different suggestions and opinions.owever, as the hiking area aims to attract nature-oriented peopleis target group was seen as being suitable for the developmentrposes.There has also been some critique that certain Delphi studies havet been executed or reported properly (Donohoe & Needham, 2009).ence the design choices, data collection and analysis process were de-ribed as transparently and in as much detail as possible in this study.ere should be more of these kinds of case-studies so as to be able toin amore comprehensive view of the suitability of the DelphimethodNSD processes.In future NSD cases the Delphi panel could be formed from both
urists and from the service providers to get both of the views duringe idea generation phase. This way the Delphi approach could beed throughout the whole development process, as in this case itsagewas limited to the idea generation and evaluation phases. Howev-, conducting the whole NSD process with Delphi may be challengingcausemultiple rounds during the development process are time con-ming and the commitment of the panellists may not last till the endithout motivating them well.
Narrative 2
A
This does not need to be anything too serious as everyone can chooseactivities and competitions which best suit them. These would beorganised in such a way that the participants do not have to know
Appendix 1 (continued) (continued)
Type of information for productdevelopment
Information gained from Delphi
on one activity that would then havethe main role and the other activitieswould have supporting roles. Thefeedback also included a lot ofcomments about what was good ineach of the thematic products. These
Appendix 2 (continued)
52 H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2015) 42–54
each other in advance or belong to the same group. After the activi-ties or competitions, it would be fun to spend time together withother participants, for example, at a campfire or a restaurant.Accommodation would smell of sawed timber and tar. It is fantasticto bathe with birch twigs in a sauna by the water after a tough day.
ppendix 2. Type of information gained for product development
Type of information for productdevelopment
Information gained from Delphi
New product ideas
• Nine thematic products developed• Additional product and service ideasthat were made after reading thethematic product narratives
Round 1: The data received from thefirst round differed a lot. Some of theresponses were written in story formand they included very fresh and newideas about services that do not existin the area at the moment. On theother hand some panellists had justlisted activities they want to do orfacilities they expect to have.Different thematic products wereformed based on a narrative analysisof the data. Two of these stories arepresented in Appendix 1. Each of thethematic product formulates fromdifferent kinds of service modules (e.g.accommodation, activities and food).Round 2: In the comments related tothe thematic products, alternativeforms or products were suggested. Forinstance shorter packages for certaintarget groups were suggested(including also an educationalpurpose): “…In order to get moreexperienced hikers, it would be great ifthe offering included one day hiking tripsthat are made independently, but whichwould include food and transportationservice.” In addition the commentsincluded ideas and suggestions fororganising events related to thethemes of the products.
Comments and suggestions related to thesupply and facilities
Round 1: Comments were gained inrelation to six themes:accommodation, activities, services,relaxation and pampering, food, andthe service environment. Thecomments focused on describing thepreferred services and facilities (e.g.accommodation), expected quality ofservices and activities, and content ofthe offering. For instance, issuesrelated to the development ofexisting and potential activities werementioned (e.g. Geocaching). Thosepanellists who were familiar with theservices and facilities of the area, gavealso comments and suggestions onhow these could be improved ordeveloped.
Comments and suggestions related to thethematic products:
• What was perceived as interesting ineach product
• What components and issues of theproduct should be improved
• Suggestions on how to realize some ofthe activities and services in practice
Round 2: Comments focused on thecontent of the thematic products. Thecomments on the contents focused onevaluating the number of activitiesand service modules included in theproduct. It was mentioned that theproduct package should not includetoo many activities and e.g. in thethematic product of “Activelyoutdoors” it would be good to focus
are the components that should beemphasised when the products aredeveloped further on.Some of the comments also focusedon evaluating the proper duration forthe thematic products from theperspective of different target groups.The respondents also listed thingsthat were seen as important for thefunctionality of the product and howit could be realized in practice (e.g.related to transportationrequirements and given guidance).
Appeal of the thematic products:
• Some of the thematic products weremore appealing than others →evaluations on which of the thematicproducts would be the most suitablefor further development
Round 2: The respondentscommented on at least four thematicproducts they found the mostappealing. Based on the number ofcomments the thematic productscould be ranked based on the appeal.In addition the comments for eachproduct were evaluated based onwhether the comment focused onpositive or negative aspects of theproduct.
Potential target groups could beidentified
Round 1: In some of the responsesand stories written by the panelliststhe travel company was stated andhence some conclusions could bemade regarding the potential targetgroups and preferred travel company.These were also partly included in theproduct description narrativesformed during the analysis.Round 2: Based on the responses fromround two, most of the productthemes seem to have potential targetgroups (named in the responses).Comments were written either fromthe respondents' own perspectives oron a wider scale: e.g. the suitability ofthe product was evaluated fordifferent target groups. In additionthe panellist evaluated whether theproduct was more suitable forindividual travelling or travellingwith a group. As a more generalcomment related to the product“Togetherness and activities for allthe family”, it was stated that it isgood that there is a product that istargeted for children and families asnot many nature tourism destinationsare investing in developing servicesand activities for this particular targetgroup.
Comments on the thematic productdescriptions:
• Comments on the contents of thedescriptions
• Suggestions for marketing• Request for additional information
Round 2: In the comments there weresuggestions for alternative ways todescribe the product or how somethings could be left out oremphasised differently. Forinstance the comments on theproduct “Strength from the naturalenvironment” included leavingmobile devices when on the trip.This was seen a bit too drastic and inaddition it was suggested that insteadof leaving the devices it couldemphasise “forgetting that these
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8). DMana). Th382.& San2483., Vitnnal9). T
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(continued)
Type of information for productdevelopment
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devices exist”. A few panellists saidthat some of the products were a bitsimilar and those products could becombined somehow.In the comments it was also suggestedthat certain features of the area couldbe better utilised in the product de-scription and also in marketing. Alsothe accessibility was brought forth inaddressing the appeal of the area forcertain products. To give an example,the product “Fishing at the rapids”could be marketed for the target groupby saying that the area provides a goodfishing closer by and one does not needalways travel to Lapland for fishing.As the product descriptions did not in-cluded prices, this came up in rathermany of the comments. The panellistsfelt that the price is one central factordetermining whether they would bewilling to buy the product. Hence, thiskind of additional and more detailedinformation was requested. Inaddition, some of the panellist said thatthey would go on a certain kind of tripif the product was reasonably priced.However, a reasonable price was notdefined.
Appendix 2 (continued)
H. Konu / Tourism Management Perspectives 14 (2015)
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Article 3
CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT IN A NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: DEVELOPING THE “FEELGOOD IN LAPLAND” TOURISM OFFERING Konu, H. and Komppula, R. (2016). Customer involvement in a new service development process: Developing the “Feelgood in Lapland” tourism offering. ANATOLIA -‐‑ An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, published online 16 Feb 2016, doi:10.1080/13032917.2016.1144625. This is the authors accepted manuscript of an article published as the version of record in Anatolia © 16 Feb 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2016.1144625. Reprinted with kind permission from Taylor & Francis.
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Customer involvement in a new servicedevelopment process: the case of “Feelgood inLapland”
Henna Konu & Raija Komppula
To cite this article: Henna Konu & Raija Komppula (2016): Customer involvement in a newservice development process: the case of “Feelgood in Lapland”, Anatolia
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AnAtoliA, 2016http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2016.1144625
Customer involvement in a new service development process: the case of “Feelgood in Lapland”
Henna Konu and Raija Komppula
Business School, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
Introduction
Several authors have highlighted customer involvement and role of the customer in new service devel-opment (NSD) (Alam & Perry, 2002; Chan, Yim, & Lam, 2010; Hjalager & Nordin, 2011; Nicolajsen & Scupola, 2011; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Sjödin & Kristensson, 2012). The benefits of cus-tomer involvement for businesses include developing the customer relationships, lower numbers of market failures and errors, as well as faster NSD processes and reduced times for launching new services (Alam & Perry, 2002; Gruner & Homburg, 2000; Matthing, Sandén, & Edvardsson, 2004). Even though customer involvement has been regarded as being important for successful product and service development (Alam, 2006; Magnusson, Matthing, & Kristensson, 2003), there have only been a few empirical studies related to the topic, e.g. concerning outcomes and effectiveness (Campbell & Cooper, 1999), how to engage customers with NSD (Kristensson, Matthing, & Johansson, 2008), and how customer involvement can enhance and contribute to NSD processes (Sigala, 2012b).
Most of the studies of customer involvement in NSD are made in a business-to-business context and focus on developing financial and technological services (Alam, 2006; Alam & Perry, 2002; Matthing et al., 2004). However, a few studies have also focused on examining customer involvement in the settings of experiential industries such as tourism and hospitality (Komppula & Lassila, 2014; Konu, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c; Sigala, 2012b; Sjödin & Kristensson, 2012). Hjalager and Nordin (2011) point out that future research should focus on user-driven innovation practices and methods in tourism.
ABSTRACTThe aim of this study is to examine the ability of a company to utilize customer involvement, benefits derived from it, and the challenges faced in the process of involving customers to participate in new service development (NSD) in different stages of the NSD process by adopting a case study approach. The findings show that a company gained several benefits by involving customers. The company also had the willingness to involve customers in NSD but diverse challenges and other operational development projects affected the realization. The study shows several practical implications that are related to customer involvement in diverse phases of NSD, bringing concrete benefits for a company. Nevertheless, cooperation with external research organizations is almost indispensable for small enterprises.
© 2016 taylor & Francis
KEYWORDSCustomer involvement; new service development; longitudinal action research; Finland
ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 21 July 2015 Accepted 18 January 2016
CONTACT Henna Konu [email protected]
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The importance of involving customers throughout the NSD process has been highlighted, but recent studies focus mainly on one phase of the NSD process instead of involving customers in several phases during the process (Edvardsson, Kristensson, Magnusson, & Sundström, 2012; Kristensson, Gustafsson, & Archer, 2004; Sigala, 2012b). Sigala (2012a) notes that research has not been able to prove the benefits of customer involvement because most studies have focused on short-term and especially financial benefits, although the benefits of customer involvement are long term and are difficult to measure. Hence, there is a lack of research examining how customer involvement in various phases of the NSD process would work in real business contexts, and what the opportunities and challenges of this kind of approach would be from the company point of view. This paper aims to fill this research gap by presenting a case study extending throughout the development process of a new tourist service. The case company is a private hotel chain comprising thirteen hotels in Lapland, Finland. The aim of this paper is to examine: the ability of the company to utilize customer involvement, the benefits derived from the customer involvement in this case, and the challenges faced in the process of involving customers to participate in the NSD in different stages of the NSD process.
Literature review
Taking changes of customer lifestyles, increased use of social media and customers’ interest in and willingness to actively participate in service production into account, customer involvement, and the role of the customer have become even more important in NSD. The customer can be seen as a co-producer of the service and also as a co-creator of value (Grönroos, 2007; Lusch, Vargo, & O’Brien, 2007; Vargo & Lusch, 2004). Grönroos (2008) emphasizes that firms should gain a profound under-standing of people’s everyday practices to be able to develop new services, and to do this firms need to develop customer–firm interactions that affect customers’ value-creating processes. Some authors (e.g. Binkhorst & Den Dekker, 2009) also acknowledge that product- and/or firm-centric innovations are already partly replaced by the co-creation of experiences that act as a basis for value. Customer involvement in service innovations has been defined as an interactive process including collaboration between a service provider and customers (current or potential) during the process of service devel-opment based on the identified latent needs of customers (Matthing et al., 2004).
Several NSD models are based on new product development processes including phases, such as strategic planning, idea generation, idea screening, business analysis, formation of cross-functional teams, service/product and process system design, personnel training, service/product testing and piloting, test marketing, and commercialization (Alam & Perry, 2002; Hart & Baker, 1994; Kingman-Brundage & Shostack, 1991; Nambisan, 2002), which are applied in diverse service settings. In the field of tourism, Konu, Tuohino, and Komppula (2010) introduced a descriptive model especially designed for NSD in tourism, based on concepts introduced by Edvardsson and Olsson (1996) and adapted by Komppula (2006). In their model, service concept development includes phases of idea generation for the core product, core product screening, internal concept testing, and concept development. Service process development includes module creation and development, service blueprinting, internal pro-totype testing, business analysis, and formal product blueprinting. The next stage is market testing, consisting of external product testing and financial evaluation. The last two stages are commerciali-zation (formal product offering or presentation of the product), and post-introduction evaluation. As this NSD framework was developed specifically for the tourism context, it is also applied in this study.
According to Nambisan (2002), customers may have different roles in different phases of the devel-opment process. From a business perspective, customers may act as a resource (usually in the idea generation phase), referring to customers being a source of new service ideas. In the design and devel-opment phases, the customer acts as a co-creator and in the testing and commercialization phases as a user (Nambisan, 2002; Nicolajsen & Scupola, 2011). As users, customers can contribute to testing and commercialization (Nambisan, 2002) by evaluating the suitability and functionality of services. In this case, it is important that businesses pay attention to which customers are involved and the customer segments they are in.
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The attitude of entrepreneurial leaders affects the interest and ability of a company to act in a customer-oriented way (Melton & Hartline, 2010), and thus to the level of engaging customers in NSD processes. Customer involvement may require that the company has an open innovation and information-sharing culture as well as a flexible organizational structure, and that it provides manage-ment support of collaboration with the customers, as well as the provision of technical resources and time for NSD purposes (Sigala, 2012a). Employees should recognize the business value of involving customers in NSD, which may require new policies from the company management side as well as training and rewarding the employees (Chan et al., 2010).
Businesses face challenges in involving customers and selecting and motivating customers for and during the involvement process (Nambisan, 2002). Identifying the right customers for the process, finding the questions to ask, relying too much on the existing customer base, the usability of customer ideas and over-customization are regarded as problems in involving customers in NSD (Alam, 2006; Kendrick & Fletcher, 2002; Sigala, 2012a). The customers involved should be selected in a way that serves the company’s aims. For instance, if the aim is to develop services for new target groups, the company should involve potential customers in the NSD process instead of just focusing on existing customers. Another challenge is that managers are often not aware of methods of involving customers in NSD or how to interpret the customer’s voice (Alam, 2006; Sigala, 2012a).
Sjödin and Kristensson (2012) argue that customers are more willing to participate if the NSD process is seen as providing positive experiences, and negative experiences arise when customers feel that they are not capable of carrying out the requested task or that the recruitment process, methods used, instructions given or task itself are disliked (Sjödin & Kristensson, 2012). Customer motivation and benefits are often connected to the knowledge customers gain about the product (or how it can be used) from participating in the development process (Dunn & Thomas, 1994; Nambisan, 2002). Antikainen’s (2011) findings indicate that being able to influence the development process and help make better products and services motivates customers to participate. According to Antikainen (2011), a sense of community, efficacy, and fun are also important motivators, but the most important factor is that the participant should be rewarded in some way (Antikainen, 2011).
Antikainen (2011) and Sigala (2011) have noted that online discussion forums and virtual com-munities are an effective way of involving customers and can support interactions between customers and service providers, binding customers to the development processes (Nambisan, 2002). Additional benefits may also occur when customers can reflect in real time on their experiences and compare them to those of other customers (Sigala, 2012b). However, to involve customers successfully in NSD processes, businesses need to be aware of diverse methods and processes that can be used to collect and analyse the data acquired (Kaasinen et al., 2010).
Methodology
This article presents a case study of a real-life NSD project as an instrumental case study that aims to offer an insight into the issue under investigation rather than providing an in-depth understanding of the case itself (Stake, 2005). Thus, the findings here are meant to support and facilitate our under-standing of the possible opportunities and challenges of involving customers in a new tourist service development project, which is the external interest (Stake, 2005) of this study. The internal interests, namely the findings and implications of the actual data acquired from the customer involvement, are here reported only on a scale which is required to allow the reader to follow the process.
This case adapts two different customer involvement methods that are applied in two phases of an NSD process, which is illustrated in Figure 1. A narrative approach was used to collect stories for the idea generation phase of the service concept, and virtual product testing surveys were utilized for the external market testing of two tourist products that were developed based on the stories gained from the narrative analysis. The researchers drew on longitudinal action research that they undertook during their involvement in the development process between these two customer involvement phases. Hence, this NSD process involved the personnel of the case company as well as external researchers,
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who gathered and analysed the data acquired from the customers, discussed the issues with the hotel managers and sales personnel, and were in close contact with the person responsible for product development. At the end of the project, they also interviewed the product development person about the outcomes of the project. The second author also participated in operational meetings of the board of the company during the process.
In this study, the customers who were involved in the NSD already had experience of the compa-ny’s services. Virtual product testing was intended to reach a large number of potential but targeted customers within the customer base as well as to test the attractiveness, saleability, and price of the offering. The following section describes the case and the NSD process under investigation in more detail, including descriptions of the data collections and analyses.
SERVICE CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT - Idea generation for the core product = call for stories - Core product screening = narrative analysis, new stories - Internal concept testing = the nine stories were delivered to the hotel managers, sales
persons and sales manager for evaluation
- Concept development = in a meeting four stories were chosen for further development
SERVICE PROCESS DEVELOPMENT - Module creation and development = the four chosen stories were adapted to the
resources of the company, and based on this phase, two were dropped and two were chosen for further development
- Service blueprinting = product modules were created by the respective hotel managers and the sales persons
- Internal testing = other hotel managers commented on the proposals - Business analysis and formal blue printing = the pricing stage
MARKET TESTING - Service testing (external) = virtual testing - Financial evaluation
COMMERCIALISATION - Formal offering (presentation of the services) = launched at Nordic Tourism Fair
2015
POSTINTRODUCTION EVALUATION
SERVICE SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
Figure 1. Framework for the new tourist service development of the case.
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Case description: developing “Feelgood in Lapland” tourism products
The hotels of the chain that is the subject of our case study are located in Finnish Lapland, which for Finnish people has very special connotations. As a geographical area, Lapland abounds in stereo-typical images, which can be assumed to confer upon any product or service a special significance. Most of Lapland is north of the Arctic Circle; thus, the environment is bleak but beautiful. Lapland is largely uninhabited wilderness, and for tourism it is a destination for nature and wilderness tourism. In literature and in the songs the Finns know about Lapland, it is associated with a certain mystique, magic or enchantment. In Finnish culture, references are also made to being crazy about Lapland or being a Lapland aficionado, meaning that many residents of southern Finland wish to return year after year to Lapland in search of repose, peace, and solitude. Nevertheless, there are also trendy modern ski resorts in Lapland.
The company has facilities on the fringes of the wilderness close to the national parks, and also in skiing centres. The company had a registered trademark called “Feelgood”, but the actual offering did not exist at all. Hence, when the development process started, the company wanted to develop services that would fit under the name of “Feelgood”.
In spring 2012, the managing director and the sales manager decided to create content for the “Feelgood” offering, and that the new ideas should be based on customer needs and expectations. The idea of developing a kind of permanent customer panel to collect service development data was raised because of a large-scale campaign carried out by the ferry operator Tallink-Silja (Ainasoja et al., 2010), which had put out a call for “service developers” in the media. As no suitable platform for such a panel was yet available for the company, the decision was made to first collect data from customers utilizing traditional methods, namely email in the idea-generation phase and a customer panel in the external testing phase.
Service concept development
Narrative stories – idea generationIn the first phase of the project, the main focus of interest was on customers’ own interpretations of a “dream Feelgood wellbeing holiday in Lapland”. Hence, a narrative approach was chosen, as it provided the narrators with a voice to express their feelings openly. In this case, a short topical story about a particular issue (Chase, 2005) was chosen to represent the narrative approach. Data was gathered by sending emails to the company’s Finnish customers (22,941 registered customers) asking them to send their stories of the Lapland Feelgood holiday of their dreams to the email address set up for the study. A few elaborative questions were provided, and some information about the respondents’ background was also requested. A total of 362 responses was received, of which 94 (26%) were from men and 268 (74%) were from women. The length of the responses varied from a few words to more than a page. Many of the respondents noted that it was nice to write about their wishes and thoughts, and several responses were extremely long and detailed. A few were even written in verse. Thus, the data showed great variety and diversity.
The end result of 362 narratives comprised 31 pages of text written by 94 males, and 131 pages written by 268 females; the length of the responses varied from a few words to more than a page per respondent. In general, the men’s stories were shorter and more concrete than the women’s, who more often used rich language that reflected their feelings and dreams. Although one might criticize the amount of data and argue that the response rate is far too low to be representative of the customers, the data appeared to be rich and versatile, resulting in nine distinguishable types of narratives, of which at least two could be translated into targeted product offerings. Hence, for the purposes of the NSD process, the amount and quality of the data was regarded as sufficient. As Gummesson (2000) notes, in qualitative research, the size of the sample is not the major concern, but rather what matters is the saturation of the data. Within the organization of the company in the case study, the managing director and the sales manager had no criticism concerning the amount or quality of the data materialized.
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Core product screening – the narrative analysisFollowing the model proposed by Czarniawska (2004), the stories were interpreted by repeatedly read-ing through the data, paying special attention to the differences emerging between target groups and to what was common within them. In the formation of groups, the researchers did not pay attention only to interpretations of the Feelgood service concept, but also to parts of the service process and service system that were important for each group.
Narrative analysis is not based on classification; the research forms a new story on the basis of the data (Chase, 2005). Narrative analysis is always the subjective interpretation of the researcher and may lead to criticism about its dependability – whether the findings are consistent and reproducible – as well as confirmability, which relates to the neutrality of the findings (Decrop, 2004). In this case, researcher triangulation was applied in order to increase both confirmability and dependability. Additionally, the narrative data were made available to the representatives of the case company. Nevertheless, systematic analysis of the data was solely in the hands of the researchers, as the representatives of the company were too busy with their daily routines to participate in analysing the data.
The narrative analysis resulted in nine new dream holiday stories for different target groups based on their differing expectations of experiences and the ensuing wishes and needs. The formation of the new stories used direct quotes from respondents belonging to the respective groups.
Preferences regarding travelling companions were one significant factor that constituted differences between different respondents. Therefore, four separate groups were initially formed according to whether a respondent preferred to travel with a spouse, with family, with friends, or alone. In these groups, either being together with significant others or having time to oneself were perceived as being an essential component of a well-being holiday, and these could be considered to be the purpose of a Feelgood holiday. Thus, these stories were valid for those respondents who stressed the importance of being together or of having time to themselves. The four holiday dreams are: a romantic Feelgood holiday for a couple; a Feelgood holiday for the whole family; Feelgood – being together with friends; and Feelgood time to oneself. In addition, five other holiday types emerged in the narrative analysis: Feelgood fitness and hobby holidays; Feelgood wellness holidays; Feelgood nature and hiking holiday; Feelgood wilderness holidays; and Feelgood dream holidays for Lapland aficionados.
These stories showed that clients may expect different things from a service with the same name. The ways the different target groups interpreted the Feelgood experience differed according to the respondents’ own wishes and needs.
Service process development: internal concept testing
The internal concept testing started with a presentation of the stories to the sales manager, with whom one of the researchers had a two-hour discussion of the findings in autumn 2012. The managing direc-tor had delegated the leadership of the NSD project to this manager. The sales manager was extremely interested in and satisfied with the results of the first phase of the project, and he started to prepare a plan for further development immediately. Nevertheless, other ongoing operational projects were prioritized by the hotel managers and the NSD project was postponed several times. Developments affecting daily routines were felt to be more important, and the managing director also prioritized activities that had a direct effect on efficiency and profitability.
In the end, the sales manager lost his interest in the NSD project and the responsibility was trans-ferred to the person responsible for the company’s website, and she was nominated as a product developer. At this point, the researchers were informed by the product developer that it was time to continue the project, and she took the responsibility of organizing the meetings with hotel managers and salespersons.
Four of the nine stories were chosen for further concept development. Based on resource analy-sis and a rough business analysis, two stories were selected for the first phase of the service process development: module creation and development. The hotel managers of the respective hotels chose stories, “A Feelgood holiday for the whole family”, and “Feelgood – being together with friends”, and
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the managers developed two concrete tourist product proposals based on these stories: Ski & Fun and Together with Friends. After looking at all the module proposals available, managers conducted a business analysis together with the salespersons in order to set a reasonable price for the product. Modules which were too expensive or too complicated were rejected, and the final product proposals were then blueprinted. Due to technical problems in establishing a platform for a customer panel, the product developer and researchers decided to use an electronic survey to implement the external testing in the form of a virtual product test.
Market testing: testing tourist services virtually
The external testing aimed to collect more detailed information about two tourist products that included several service modules. Hence, the questions focused on the overall product packages, which were the Ski & Fun and Together with Friends packages mentioned previously.
The data were collected by utilizing the customer database of the company, in which the customers had been categorized according to their interests concerning different types of holiday sites, activi-ties or seasons. The product Together with Friends was sent to people who had listed enjoyment and good food as their interests, and the product Ski & Fun was sent for assessment to people who were interested in large ski resorts. The selected respondents were invited via email to test the products. The actual invitation was the same for both products, followed by a description of the product being tested. The respondents were motivated by including the prize of a three-day vacation in Lapland to be raffled among all the respondents. After the description of the product, the email included an “Assess this product” button. By clicking it, the respondent was transferred to a questionnaire about the product (Table 1).
The questionnaire included both open-ended and structured questions in order to get a broad range of information. The respondents were asked to pick their favourite part of the product, the issues that make the product attractive and issues that require some improvement, as well as to describe the asso-ciation that the product aroused in them. They were also asked to grade the product and assess how easy the product description was to understand, and to assess whether it would be important for them to add other additional services to the package. The respondents were also asked how interested they would be in purchasing the described product, what channel they would like to use to buy additional services for the product package, and how often they believed they would buy the product during the course of the next two years. They were also asked whether they found the price acceptable, and if not, they were asked to propose acceptable prices for groups of different sizes.
At the beginning of the virtual testing phase, the product developer felt that the process was rather laborious. The preparation of the technical implementation required several meetings with the researchers and external assistants. At the same time, the company worked to instil product development practices in their activities, which affected time management. Once the development activities got off to a good start, the company representatives perceived customer involvement and the planned process as the right way to proceed.
One of the researchers conducted the data analysis phase for the virtual testing, although the product developer also had access to the data. The process was extremely laborious and required the concen-tration of one researcher for more than two weeks. The hotel managers and salespersons, as well as the product developer, felt that the testing gave new insights into the service development. The customers
Table 1. Sample sizes of the virtual testing.
Ski & Fun Together with friendsSample 2764 2684Reached by email 2700 2578number of customers opening the email 1045 1048number of customers opening the questionnaire 475 494number of respondents 343 323interested in being a product developer in future 319 (94.1%) 289 (92%)
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provided ideas for additional services, and detailed information and suggestions were also gained in relation to the duration, group size, suitability, and required additional information for the products.
The results of the testing were concrete and helpful, leading to several changes in the product proposals. Nevertheless, due to the large workload, the efficiency of the implemented form of testing can be questioned. The data collection method proved to be efficient and succeeded in motivating a sufficient number of customers to participate in the project, but for a company alone without the help of a university, the cost of analysing the data would have been far too high.
Commercialization and post-introduction evaluation
After the virtual testing, a few small specifications were added to the content of both product proposals, and the new products were launched at the Nordic Travel Fair in January 2015. Hence, the final success of the products will be visible one or two years after the launch. Their success will be measured in terms of sales and compared to earlier offerings based on only internal service development processes.
By allowing customers to participate in the development process at several stages, the company received much more information to support service development than it would have received by involving customers in only one stage of development. Table 2 summarizes the information gained from the customers at different phases of the NSD process.
According to the managing director and the product developer, the company aims to continue the development processes and to develop an online community platform that is integrated into their website. This decision was supported by the fact that over 90% of those who responded to the virtual testing were willing to be members of the forthcoming product development panel. The respondents also appreciated the fact that the company have activities that involve customers to development processes. This was emphasized by one of the respondents, who stated:
It’s great that you listen to your customers’ wishes. I used to be a product developer for Service Plus for years, and I have been pleased to see how it changed some of the services. Sometimes you see product packages that do not appeal to you at all. People need experiences and an advertisement must create the correct associations.
Table 2. information obtained from customers during the process.
Narratives – a request to tell a storyVirtual testing – targeted question-naires about service descriptions
Service development process stage Generation of ideas Service testing (external)information obtained using the method
(content)Different kinds of contents and product themes that could be used as the basis of service development were obtained
information about what is good about the services, which issues need to be improved, what kinds of thoughts the services raised in the minds of the customers (to support marketing), what the service product should include, applicability of the product price, issues influencing the purchase decision, purchasability, opportunities for cus-tomization
Final result nine narratives about the service product (service concept development), information about interests and needs of different target groups
Concrete improvement suggestions regarding service process and service system, information about the attrac-tiveness of the service products and applicability of the price
Utilization of the data Service ideas as the starting point for product development
information on whether the service product could be marketed as such/whether editing the service product for the market is necessary
Costs Data collection is cost-efficient but analysing it takes time
Data collection is cost-efficient, basic analysis of the data (quantitative) is quick, analysing the open ended ques-tions takes time
number of responses 362 SKi & FUn 343, together with Friends 323
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In the case of holidays in Lapland, in particular. After all, Lapland is the answer for people living a hectic life in southern Finland who want to have a relaxing holiday.
It seems that when customers have a feeling that their views are appreciated and will be used in devel-oping the business, this is important to the customers and they are willing to participate. This supports the Antikainen’s (2011) findings which indicate that being able to influence the development process motivates customers to participate development activities.
Conclusion and implications
The first aim of this paper was to examine the company’s ability to utilize customer involvement. The findings support the ideas of Sigala (2012a) and Chan et al. (2010) and show that successful utilization of customer participation in NSD requires willingness, ability, and commitment to this approach at all levels of the organization. This is in line with Melton and Hartline (2010), who noted that the attitude of a company’s leaders affects the ability and interest of that company to act in a customer-oriented way. The whole process needs input from the personnel of the company, especially when customers’ ideas are evaluated (Ordanini & Parasuraman, 2011). Involving the personnel of the company in assessing the usability of customer ideas may also reduce the problem of over-customization (Alam, 2006; Sigala, 2012a).
This case shows that the company derived diverse benefits by involving customers in several phases of the NSD process, which eventually led to the launch of two new service products under the theme “Feelgood”. The customers’ ideas of the service concept were developed by the personnel in the form of concrete offerings, which were then again evaluated by the customers. While the idea generation phase provided several ideas for service concepts, the virtual testing phase offered the company con-crete, detailed suggestions, mainly related to the service process and service system. Hence, involving customers in the whole process provided valuable information for all components of the service. The findings contribute to the NSD literature by giving a practical example of the process and methods that can be used to involve customers in diverse phases of NSD, as there has been lack of studies that show how to engage customers with NSD (Kristensson et al., 2008) and how customer involvement can contribute to NSD processes (Sigala, 2012b). Additionally, previous studies (Alam, 2006; Edvardsson et al., 2012) have focused on only one specific stage of the service development process or a single method of customer involvement.
From the business point of view, one of the benefits was the cost-effective data collection method utilizing the Internet and the company’s own customer base. However, there were differences in how eager the customers were to take part in the data collection. A non-targeted email in the first stage received far fewer replies (in relation to the sample size) than the more clearly targeted one in the virtual testing. Therefore, one can assume that customers are more interested in participating, commenting, and providing feedback on products that they feel are targeted at them. Hence, we agree with Kaasinen et al. (2010) who state that the experiences and motivations of customers involved should be studied and identified in order to be able to design the most suitable methods of participation for different participant groups. The virtual product development panel the company is planning to create should therefore be developed in such a way that it enables testing targeted at specific segments.
According to Nambisan (2002), reaching and motivating customers to participate in the NSD pro-cesses has been regarded as challenging. The findings of this study indicate that a customer database is a great resource for NSD activities’, as it enables a huge amount of customers to be reached and the invitation to be targeted. The large number of relatively short responses in the idea-generation phase may indicate that those respondents were more motivated by the reward than the possibility to participate. However, it seems that, later during the NSD process when the activities were more targeted, the customers were also increasingly motivated by being able to influence the development process and help make better services (see Antikainen, 2011). Hence, the motivation of customers to participate may differ according to the stage of NSD process.
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Our findings indicate that it is important to target development activities at the right target groups, and customers may also be singly motivated by an opportunity to be heard, which is in line with sev-eral other studies (Antikainen, 2011; Dunn & Thomas, 1994; Nambisan, 2002; Sjödin & Kristensson, 2012). However, companies should be aware of the risks of over-reliance on the existing customer base (Kendrick & Fletcher, 2002).
The company faced also other challenges during the NSD project. There were several other opera-tional development projects underway within the company, and the low motivation and commitment of the personnel at the beginning of the process was mainly because the development activities were carried out alongside other tasks. During the process, the responsibility of the NSD was also trans-ferred from one person to another. Technical challenges affected the way the data were collected, and the original idea of creating an online customer panel remained to be developed in future. Hence, the findings indicate that the leadership of the NSD process should be entrusted to a person who acknowledges the appropriate NSD approach, and that the person should be provided with sufficient resources for the project. Similar kinds of challenges, such as a lack of time or technical resources, have also been reported in previous studies (e.g. Sigala, 2012a). The findings also indicate that using methods other than traditional customer involvement methods may be challenging, time-consuming, and expensive for the company (Konu, 2015c), and companies may lack the knowhow to implement them. This is in line with Komppula and Lassila (2014), who state that involving customers in ser-vice development often requires collaboration between tourism businesses and universities or other research units familiar with these methods.
This study has limitations, as it presents a practical case where the overall NSD process was realized by following the terms specified by the company. Hence, the starting point of the study was practical rather than academic research-oriented. This means that, especially in the first phase especially – the narrative study – the data collection could have been more targeted. Using the company’s customer database may also be seen as a limitation (Kendrick & Fletcher, 2002). The researchers acknowledge that the findings may have been somewhat different if the people involved would have been potential customers of the company instead of current ones. However, as the aim was to develop a new offering that would initially attract existing customers, this was seen as the right way to proceed. To tackle the issue of asking the right questions, the starting point was to ask customers to tell about their dream holiday and not to give them very detailed guidelines. Thus, the customers had the possibility to describe their dream holiday as they wished, without restricting their creativity.
Additionally, at this point, information is not available about the financial benefits regarding the sales of the new products. Hence, it is easy to agree with Sigala (2012a), who said that the benefits of customer involvement are difficult to measure. Nevertheless, we suggest that these findings will be helpful for companies and researchers when planning similar projects.
Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributorHenna Konu is a project manager/researcher at the University of Eastern Finland, Centre for Tourism Studies. She has a lot of experience in different national and international tourism research and development projects. Her research interests are in service development, customer involvement, consumer/tourist experiences, experiential services, and well-being and nature tourism. She is currently writing her doctoral dissertation on the customer involvement in expe-riential tourism service development. Henna Konu’s publications include articles in Tourism Management, Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management, Tourism Review, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, and in Tourism Management Perspectives. She has also co-authored several book chapters in international edited books in tourism field.
Raija Komppula is Professor of Marketing, especially Tourism Business, at the University of Eastern Finland, Business School. She lectures additionally at the University of Lapland (tourism marketing) and at the Finnish University Network
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for Tourism Studies. Her research interests include customer value-based experience design, customer involvement in new service development in tourism, destination branding, market orientation, small business research and entre-preneurship, cooperation and networks. She has conducted research on these topics especially in the context of rural tourism. The field of well-being tourism, with a focus on lakes and forests is a current research area of her research group. Professor Komppula?s publications include articles in Tourism Management, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, Tourism Review, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism and in Tourism Today. She has also co-authored two text books in tourism marketing in Finland, and she is the author of several book chapters in international edited books in tourism field. Komppula has several positions of trust in tourism industry in Finland: she has been member of the Executive board of Finnish Tourist Board for more than 10 years, and member of board of directors of a private hotel chain in Lapland, Finland (Lapland Hotels) and a holiday center in North Karelia (Huhmarisvaaran Loma Ltd). She also has several positions of trust in different kinds of development projects in tourism field in Finland. Komppula is a member and committee member of AIEST.
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies
ISBN 978-952-61-2180-2ISSN 1798-5757
Dissertations in Social Sciencesand Business Studies
PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
This dissertation examines customer involvement in experiential tourism service
development, by discussing customer involvement and consumer service experience in the NSD process of experiential services,
and examining the contribution and usefulness of diverse methods utilised new experiential service development. This dissertation takes
a case study approach and presents three different new tourism service development cases.
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CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT IN NEW EXPERIENTIAL TOURISM SERVICE DEVELOPMENT
Evidence in wellbeing and nature tourism contexts