Co-creating customer experience: The role of employees in tourism and hospitality services

This chapter evaluates the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence employees in the co-creation of customer experiences, and hence value, from a tourism and hospitality perspective. It provides practitioners with a basis for understanding the significance of a co-creation-based approach in terms of managing their internal resources, and employees in particular. According to Meyer and Schwager and Verhoef, a customer’s co-creation experience is shaped by his or her individual and subjective response to any direct and indirect contact with the service provider(s). Employee engagement can be initiated through internal branding that connects the firm’s brand values, as perceived by external constituents, to that of internal stakeholders, the employees. The chapter explores the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence the hospitality and tourism industry’s employees in the process of value co-creation. It also responds to the call for studies on the process in multiple stakeholder networks who are important internal stakeholders.