Co-creation experience and foodscape in tourism: A case study of Yogyakarta

Abstract

Research focusing on co-creation experience in tourism has seen a significant increase in the last decade considering its importance as a basis for experiential value creation and future innovation. Co-creation experience concept is deeply related to food tourism because this type of tourism is about experiencing food and its associations with environments and people. The idea of foodscape is widely used in many studies to understand the connections between food, environments, and people. However, the ideas remain limited to be found in tourism studies in particular food tourism. Thus, investigating the linkage between the concepts of co-creation experience and foodscape is an interesting area of research. As such, this thesis aims to investigate how co-creation experience influences and creates foodscape in a food tourism destination. This research uses Yogyakarta, Indonesia as a basis to explore the construct of foodscape, co-creation tourism experience components that contribute to shaping foodscape, and how these components influence and create foodscape.

The literature on food experience in tourism, co-creation experience, food tourism, and foodscape lays the theoretical foundation for this research. This research uses case study methodology and is based on collections of secondary data, observations, and interviews with food tourism suppliers and international tourists. The findings of this study are divided into three key areas. First, this study identifies five foodscape constructs: tangible and intangible environments, social interactions, food quality, price, and divergence. Second, the co-creation experience that shape foodscape is divided into three components: engagement, personalization, and co-production. It finds that these components center on experience environment and experience involvement. Third, this study finds that each co-creation experience components influence and create foodscape through new food offerings inventions, authenticity seeking, and attraction, facilities, and activities.

This research contributes to understanding the dynamic nature of foodscape and the components of co-creation experience in the context of food tourism. It also develops our understanding of connections between co-creation experience and foodscape of the food tourism destination. As such, for academia, the research result can be used as a cornerstone for further studies in the related fields. Then, for practitioners, the findings may be useful to manage the construction of foodscape through co-creation experience.