Creating Experience Value in Tourism

As the field of tourism grows in maturity and scientific sophistication, it is important to fully understand the breadth and depth of vacation experience value. Current research delivers a multitude of approaches to value creation, represented here as a set of definitions, perspectives, and interpretations of how tourists, as customers, create value alone and with others. Providing an analytical and systematic clarification of the approaches, this book suggests an understanding of the differences, offering new and practical knowledge for tourism scholars and professionals to highlight the relevance of the concept to firms and organizations. Including a framework to distinguish among key resources or antecedents of customer value, this book also considers consumer behaviour and factors affecting value creation from physiological and psychological perspectives. Concluding with a summary of the areas for future research, it is a valuable resource for researchers of tourism, leisure and recreation.

Nina K Prebensen is a Professor at Buskerud and Vestfold University College and at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She has published papers in various tourism journals. Her research focuses particularly on the tourist decision and experience processes, where co-creation of value for hosts and guests are in focus. Her teaching experiences include marketing, tourism marketing and management, service quality and branding strategies. Prebensen has been part of 25 business boards, and has a long history in co-operating with the tourism industry.

Dr. Joseph S. Chen is a faculty member of the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies at Indiana University at Bloomington, USA. He has been identified by premier tourism/hospitality journals (Tourism Management and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research) as one of the leading tourism scholars worldwide. He has received international research awards and fellowships including US Fulbright Senior Scholar.

is a management psychologist (Ph.D., U/Massachusetts, 1979), Professor of Marketing, and Virginia Real estate Research Fellow at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has published extensively in the area of marketing, business ethics, and quality of life (QOL). He is the author/editor of many books related to consumer marketing and quality of life. He also served editor of the QOL section in the Journal of Macromarketing (1995-present). He received the Virginia Tech's Pamplin Teaching Excellence Award/Holtzman Outstanding Educator Award and University Certificate of Teaching Excellence in 2008. In 2010, ISQOLS honoured him for excellence and lifetime service to the society. In 2010 he won the Best Paper Award in the Journal of Happiness Studies for his theory of the balanced life; in 2011 also he won the Best Paper Award in the Journal of Travel Research for his goal theory of leisure travel satisfaction. In 2012 he was awarded the EuroMed Management Research Award for outstanding achievements and ground breaking contributions to well-being and quality-of-life research. He also was the editor of ISQOLS/Springer book series on handbooks in QOL research and the community QOL indicators best practices.

Muzaffer Uysal is a Provost Professor and Carney Family Endowed Professor in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He served as department chair from August 2016 to August 2023. Currently, Dr. Uysal is serving as the president of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and a fellow of the Academy of Leisure Sciences. Dr. Uysal has authored and co-authored numerous scholarly articles, five monographs, and sixteen books. He is widely recognized for his contributions, receiving over thirty awards for research, international education, teaching excellence, and lifetime achievements. Over the past four years. Dr. Uysal was listed among the top 1% of the world's most highly cited researchers by Clarivate Analytics. He has also received the Research.com Business and Management Leader Award for three consecutive years.

Professor Haywantee (Rumi) Ramkissoon is an internationally recognized expert in sustainability, tourism, and environmental psychology. She is a Professor at UniSA Business, University of South Australia, and a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg. She has earned two doctorates-one in Applied Environmental Psychology and another in Tourism Marketing-and holds degrees from Monash University, Greenwich University, and Harvard Medical School. Ranked in the world's top 1% of most-cited researchers by Clarivate (2021-2024) and featured in Stanford's top 2% scientists list, she is a global research leader. Professor Ramkissoon has received prestigious awards such as the Emerging Scholar of Distinction (2017) and has served as a visiting scholar across five continents. Her editorial roles span top-tier journals, and she has reviewed for over 90 academic publications in tourism, psychology, and sustainability. Her work focuses on public health, behaviour change, and global sustainable development.