Co-creating experiences in rural tourism

Abstract

Russian Federation is characterized with vast rural territories experiencing economic downturn and demanding new approaches to prompt economic activity. Rural tourism has shown its effectiveness in supporting sustainable development of territories in dif-ferent parts of the world. Although this area of business is recognized as a priority in gov-ernmental decrees, there are few examples of rural tourism enterprises in the country and a scarcity of literature on effective management of rural tourism companies. Co-creative management, an approach in which value is created through interaction and collaboration between customers and companies, is claimed to be advantageous in the sector of rural tourism. The research aimed to examine the influence of co-creative approach on tourists’ expe-riences in international program “Ogorod”, Leningrad region. Namely, it discovered the impact of co-creative practices in comparison to other factors of the experience and sug-gested improvements to the program design. The exploratory inductive study applied case study strategy and used multi-method techniques, assessing several qualitative data sources. Primary data were collected through two in-depth and four semi-structured online interviews; secondary data were retrieved from press and social media sources related to the case. The findings revealed that co-creative practices had a strong positive impact on the level of tourists’ satisfaction. Co-creative elements of the program left the strongest memo-ries in comparison with the parts of the program where collaboration between the com-pany and the tourists did not take place. The participants suggested to increase the level of co-creative practices in order to improve the quality of the program for further visitors.