Touristic Authenticity and Value Co-Creation: An Exploration of Two Local Wineries in Southeastern Arizona, USA

Graduate Student Thesis - Local wineries typically generate revenues and increase product exposure through touristic activities and strategies. Moreover, tourism represents an opportunity for local wineries to purposefully engage customers in the co-creation of products and services, which in turn promotes greater customer loyalty (Hollebeek & Brodie 2009). In this paper, we explore the intersection of touristic authenticity (Cohen, 1988; Wang, 1999) and value co-creation (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004a,b) at two local wineries located in the Sonoita-Elgin Wine Region of Southeastern Arizona, USA. Our findings indicate that touristic authenticity is enhanced through the application of the four core principles of value co-creation —dialogue, accessibility, risk assessment, transparency. Based on the findings, a value co-creation guide is proposed as a practical tool to be used by local wineries to empower tourists as value co-creators. Equally important, potential spillover effects of such empowerment on the rural communities and economies in which local wineries exist are considered.