The value co-creation of tourists in grassland tourism: A more-than-human perspective

Abstract

Encouraging tourists to participate actively in grassland tourism co-creation is an effective strategy to promote sustainable tourism development. This paper adopts a more-than-human perspective, taking Hulunbuir Grassland as a case study, uses the grounded theory to analyze the online reviews of tourists from multiple Online Travel Agencies platforms, and reveals the process and results of value co-creation in grassland tourism. The findings indicate that: (1) Tourists interact frequently with other people, animals, and plants in grassland tourism. Natural environment experience, tourism activity experience, minority culture experience, and multi-interactive experiences are essential processes to promote value co-creation. (2) Under the influence of tourists and destination human and non-human participation in value co-creation, five kinds of value co-creation results have been formed, namely: ecological value, social value, economic value, cultural value, and emotional value. This study focuses on the importance of non-human beings, such as animals and plants, in ecotourism activities, provides new insights into value co-creation research, and makes relevant recommendations for destination practitioners to promote people to care for animals and plants and the ecological environment.