Customer Engagement and Co-Creation/destruction: The Role of External Actors That Foster/Hinder Tourist/Hotel Interactive Experience

Customers have become active and engaged with multiple actors outside the hotel, raising new challenges to theory and practice. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the external actors with which customers interact to ascertain which ones foster/hinder customer engagement and value co-creation/destruction. We used qualitative methods (16 in-depth interviews, document analysis, and four participants' observations) gathered from seven regions in Ghana. Data were analyzed using Nvivo12 within a thematic analysis framework designed to identify, analyze, and describe patterns found in data. The study revealed that guests' interactive engagement with multiple actors beyond the hotel environment influences their experience, either fostering or hindering value co-creation. Positive and negative engagement fosters/hinders guests' interactions and the potential for value co-creation/destruction. The study offers a novel connection between customer interactions, engagement, and value co-creation to discover and depict the external actors' actions that foster or hinder customers' experience in the hotel setting. Industry players can use the developed customer interactive engagement framework and value co-creation/destruction actors in tourist and hotel settings to assess their businesses and explore the value they aim to generate.