Value co-destruction in tourism and hospitality: a systematic literature review and future research agenda

ABSTRACT

This study systematically reviews, synthesises and integrates the extant literature on value co-destruction in the field of tourism and hospitality. The results indicate that research in this field is still in its infancy, suffers from a contextual imbalance and employs mainly qualitative methods. Several gaps are identified, and four areas for future work are proposed: further theorisation, application of the topic and scale development, fostering a broader focus on cross-cultural studies and a need for studies in different hospitality and tourism settings; greater use of on-site data collection and engaging in mixed-methods analysis; and greater consideration of service-provider and multiple-actor perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Value co-destruction
• value diminution
• tourism
• hospitality
• antecedents
• outcomes
• service dominant logic
• resource integration
• service encounters
• customer-supplier interaction

Introduction

Recent years have seen a proliferation of studies on value co-creation (VCC) (Buhalis & Sinarta, 2019, Dekhili & Hallem, 2020, Ravazzani & Hazée, 2022, Shen et al., 2020). Based on Vargo and Lusch’s (2004) service-dominant logic (SDL), VCC can be understood as a process in which customers and suppliers interact through the medium of a service encounter to create reciprocal value (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). Such values represent “value-in-use” (Grönroos, 2011) and reflect the degree to which customers believe they are better off because of the consumption experience (Grönroos & Voima, 2013). Because tourism and hospitality are essentially based on the provision of experiences (Campos et al., 2018), the notion of VCC has often been applied to service encounters in tourism and hospitality contexts (Sthapit et al., 2022).

The concept of VCC has, however, been criticised because of the rather optimistic assumption that is made, usually implicitly, that the interaction between service provider and customer will result in the progressive accumulation of value-in-use (Echeverri & Skålen, 2011, Plé, 2017). It has been argued that certain elements of a service encounter may have a negative impact on the value being generated (Plé et al., 2010). This has been termed “value co-destruction” (VCD) in the marketing literature (e.g. Plé, 2017, Prior & Marcos-Cuevas, 2016). Plé et al. (2010) define VCD as “an interactional process between service systems that results in a decline in at least one of the systems” well-being’ (p. 431). In the case of tourism and hospitality, one service system would be the service provider (e.g. the tour operator, hotel or restaurant) and the other the consumer or customer (e.g. the tourist, guest or diner). While Plé (2017) argues that VCC and VCD are effectively analogies of each other, Guan et al. (2020) point out that this is not strictly the case, since value “co-destruction” may result in a sub-optimal but not necessarily negative outcome in terms of value-in-use. In this case, “value diminution” might be a more suitable term to denote the phenomenon. The term “co-destruction” has, however, already become widely established in the literature. Accordingly, and following Guan et al. (2020), this paper will adopt the term “co-destruction” to denote the phenomenon of value-in-use diminution in the course of a service encounter.

Prior and Marcos-Cuevas (2016) characterise the reductions in well-being that result from VCD as taking the form of resource losses that may be physical and emotional, financial or temporal in nature. Physical and emotional losses take the form of, for example, a suitcase that has been damaged by poor baggage handling or the loss of enjoyment of a special meal spoiled by a negative service encounter. Financial losses relate, for example, to the money wasted on providing and purchasing a service. Temporal losses, meanwhile, reflect the time spent attempting to resolve the problems experienced in service provision. VCD may also be associated with negative word-of-mouth (Yeh et al., 2020), as well as possible switching behaviour and discontinuance (Sthapit & Björk, 2021), which are unwanted outcomes as far as the service provider is concerned.

While studies of VCC still dominate the service research literature (Freire & Veríssimo, 2021), the subject of VCD is increasingly being recognised as an important topic, particularly in view of its practical implications. Indeed, many service organisations have begun to introduce processes for identifying instances of VCD, so that they can investigate the reasons why they have occurred and find ways to eliminate future occurrences (Plé, 2021). The study of VCD is particularly important in the field of tourism and hospitality because, as a close-contact service industry, there are many interactions between actors (customers and service providers), which means that VCD is more likely to occur (Guan et al., 2020). This may potentially contribute to reduction in potential well-being through increased costs and loss of time, money, and other resources (Smith, 2013). It may also lead to dissatisfaction and negative word-of-mouth among customers, which may have serious adverse implications for the competitiveness of the service organisation concerned (Smith, 2013). Understanding the sources of VCD is therefore an important issue for tourism and hospitality enterprises (Guan et al., 2020).

While the application of the VCD perspective has been perceptibly slower in the field of tourism and hospitality, studies are now being published that demonstrate its applicability (e.g. Dolan et al., 2019, Guan et al., 2020, Sthapit, 2018, Sthapit et al., 2022). Academics have yet to achieve a comprehensive, holistic and widely agreed understanding of the concept (Guan et al., 2021, Sthapit et al., 2022). It can be argued, however, that a rigorous, systematic literature review (SLR) would serve to synthesise extant knowledge in the subject area to enable the emergence of a better understanding of it. This follows the recommendation of Cropanzano (2009), who advocates the use of SLRs to build greater coherence in fields that are presently fragmented and would benefit from synthesis. The present study therefore performs a SLR of studies on VCD in the field of tourism and hospitality. The aim is to gain a clearer and more cohesive understanding of the application of the concept of VCD in the tourism and hospitality fields, as well as to identify an agenda for future research in this increasingly important subject area. More specifically, the three main aims of this study are: (1) to map the evolution of research on VCD in tourism and hospitality; (2) to identify research gaps; and (3) to provide a future research agenda for scholarly work.

Literature review

The receipt of benefits by consumers could be considered equivalent to the capturing of consumer value (Ravald & Grönroos, 1996). Vargo and Lusch (2004) argue that goods-based logic has been the conventional way of understanding how value is determined. According to this logic, the supplier effectively dictates the value of its market offering by setting its selling price. Value for the consumer is then based on their personal evaluation of the balance between the benefits received and the sacrifices made to acquire the product (Hartwig et al., 2021). This means that consumers are effectively exogenous to the process that determines value (Constantin & Lusch, 1994). This kind of value is usually known as transaction value or value-in-exchange (Vargo & Lusch, 2004).

SDL, in contrast, argues that values are determined through a collaborative process involving both the customer and the supplier (Vargo & Lusch, 2004), through which both actors stand to benefit (Grönroos, 2012). This transforms both parties into resource integrators. Both have various resources at their disposal, which they commit to the process of VCC (Echeverri & Skålen, 2011). Value is, in this way, determined by customers’ interaction with, and experience of, the market offering (Grönroos & Gummerus, 2014). This requires them to acquire and make use of supplier organisations’ resources to derive benefits from the market exchange (Grönroos, 2011). As such, customers must invest their own resources to the process, including their thought and their time (Ranjan and Read, 2019).

SDL thus positions customers as co-creators of value. The supplier can only make a value proposition: it is up to the customer to invest his or her own resources to engage with the offering and thereby determine its value-in-use (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2016). Every customer will, of course, receive unique consumption experiences and have different skills, preferences and goals. This means that the determination of value-in-use is fundamentally contextual, which in turn implies that value-in-use is a highly individual and phenomenological concept (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2008).

VCC and VCD are two aspects of interactive value formation that can exist simultaneously (Smith, 2013). In fact, Plé (2017) study indicates that VCC and VCD can be regarded as two sides of the same coin. SDL emphasises actor-to-actor interactions as a means of co-creating value (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). However, some studies have argued that such interactions are also capable of resulting in VCD, which is defined as occurring when at least one-party experiences a decline in their well-being because of the interaction (Echeverri & Skålen, 2011; Plé, 2017; Plé et al., 2010. VCD thus implies that the process of resource integration between supplier and consumer has resulted in a sub-optimal outcome. According to Echeverri and Skålen (2011), this is because the activities and requirements of the two parties are not fully aligned. In attempting to integrate their resources to achieve a mutually beneficial market exchange, at least one party has behaved in such a way that the requirements of the other are not fully met. In essence, therefore, VCD represents a failed process of resource integration (Järvi et al., 2018). The result is that value-in-use is not maximised and may even be negative (Plé et al., 2010).

Findsrud et al. (2018) argue that VCD is caused by such as conflicting goals, lack of competency or motivation and intentional or the unintentional misuse of resources. Indeed, in contrast to the phenomenon of service failure, the misuse of resources may be intentional in the context of VCD (Laud et al., 2019). Smith (2013), for example, identified three types of intentional misuse of resources by service providers. First, a service provider may maintain outdated and/or ineffective service systems, including an insufficient number of suitably trained staff members. Second, a company may use automated services when customers are seeking personal attention or require customised information. Third, customers may have negative experiences with rude or unhelpful front-line staff. Hollebeek et al. (2014) found that when customers contribute significant resources only to receive poor service outputs, VCD may be significant. Service providers consequently face the challenge of ensuring that customers interact effectively in pursuit of VCC while at the same time avoiding VCD (Plé et al., 2010).

In terms of the broader contextual framing of the VCD concept in the existing literature, studies have been conducted in a variety of different settings, for example, public transport (Echeverri & Skålen, 2011), sporting events (Kim et al., 2020), organisations, both public and private (Järvi et al., 2018), public transport and healthcare (Plé, 2021), the sports industry (Chen et al., 2023), social media interactions (Frau et al., 2023) and online collaborative networks (Bidar et al., 2022).

Methods

A SLR method was used to synthesise the research on VCD across the fields of tourism and hospitality. The aim of this method is to minimise bias in the review of literature with a wide variety of different combinations of topic, subject matter, location and variables (Pickering & Byrne, 2014). An SLR maps what is known, and thus pinpoints gaps on what is yet to be known (Pickering et al., 2015). More specifically, an SLR was considered suitable to achieve the aims of this review because this approach focuses on a systematic procedure of searching, extracting, and synthesising extant literature on an articulated and justified topic (Yang et al., 2017). By synthesising a wide range of research performed in different contexts and in a variety of settings, an SLR constitutes a comprehensive approach (Pickering & Byrne, 2014). In addition, an SLR involves identifying, selecting and synthesising the literature on a domain in an unbiased, transparent and rigorous manner (Vrontis & Christofi, 2021). It also suggests future research directions to the domain’s literature by identifying gaps in the literature based on the theories, constructs, methods and contexts adopted in previous studies (Swain et al., 2023). Therefore, an SLR is considered a robust method to synthesise the literature in a domain and is a widely used approach to literature review (Vrontis & Christofi, 2021).

Current guidelines (e.g. Booth et al., 2012, Snyder, 2019) were followed to search, extract and analyse the extant literature on the subject. Following previous studies (e.g. Hosany et al., 2022), a five-step process was employed that adapted the 15 stages of the literature review developed by Pickering and Byrne (2014) and Pickering et al. (2015). These steps comprise: (1) setting the aims of the review and establishing the research questions; (2) identifying relevant databases, search terms and selection criteria; (3) searching databases, screening search outcomes against the selection criteria, and fine-tuning the inclusion and exclusion criteria; (4) constructing summary tables; and (5) analysing those summary tables.

In the first step, the following aims were established: (1) to map the evolution of research on VCD in tourism and hospitality; (2) to identify research gaps and (3) to provide a future research agenda for scholarly work. An exploratory search was conducted on Google Scholar to identify (i) relevant and synonymous terms for VCD and (ii) seminal works on the subject. Based on the first 100 hits and an initial article scanning, four keywords were identified for the search: “value co-destruction,” “co-destruction of value,” “co-destruct value” and “value codestruction.” These terms needed to appear in the title, abstract or keywords of the prospective papers. We selected three scientific databases to identify articles: (i) Web of Science, (ii) Scopus and (iii) EBSCO Host. All have been used before in SLRs (e.g. Yang et al., 2017).

Second, to enable effective synthesis, six inclusion criteria were adopted: (1) only articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals were selected; (2) articles had to be academic in nature and limited to tourism or hospitality; (3) articles needed to have received at least one citation; (4) publications had to be related to the main topic; (5) articles had to have been published since 2010–2022 and (6) articles had to be written in English. The following article types were excluded: (1) viewpoints, conference papers, research notes, research letters, editorial notes, book chapters, book reviews, conference proceedings or non-published studies; (2) articles irrelevant to the subject area and (3) duplicate studies. Non-journal publications were also excluded because of the lack of a due peer-review process (Xiao & Watson, 2019).

Third, to identify relevant publications for this review, the PRISMA protocol was used (Moher et al., 2009, Moher et al., 2015). This has been widely used in tourism studies (e.g. Hosany et al., 2022) and consists of four phases (see Figure 1): identification, screening, eligibility and inclusion. Identification determines the total number of items within the scope of the review. Screening allows that number to be narrowed down through the removal of duplications. Eligibility comprises a detailed description of the process of the exclusion of items, including the reasons for exclusion. Inclusion then reveals the final number of items that were included and used for analysis (Moher et al., 2009).

Figure 1. Flow diagram for the selection of articles based on PRISMA.

Fourth, an initial search of the three databases resulted in 474 records (Web of Science = 125; Scopus = 316; EBSCO Host = 33). After removing 280 duplicates, the remaining 194 records were screened using the selection criteria. One viewpoint, three research letters, 10 conference proceedings, five book chapters and one editorial note were then excluded, resulting in 174 peer‐reviewed articles. The full text of each record was then assessed, and 141 more articles were discarded because they did not focus explicitly on VCD and/or were outside of the tourism and hospitality context. The final sample consisted of 33 articles (Appendix B).

Fifth, articles were organised using Mendeley Desktop software and studies were manually coded in a Microsoft Excel summary table including author(s), title, year, journal, article type (i.e. theoretical or empirical), methods (i.e. quantitative, qualitative or mixed), empirical base (i.e. geographical location of sample or subjects), main purpose, findings and theoretical approach. A content analysis of the final list of articles was then undertaken (Seuring & Gold, 2012). Categories were defined a priori (i.e. a deductive approach was employed). The coding-up was conducted independently by members of the research team, with any disagreements being resolved through discussion. Intercoder reliability exceeded the widely accepted benchmark of 80% (Belur et al., 2021). Three core themes emerged, relating to the antecedents, dimensions and outcomes of VCD in tourism and hospitality. A meta-level synthesis was then conducted using these themes to develop an organising framework to help bring cohesion to the subject area and to identify promising directions for future research (Snyder, 2019).

Review findings

Distribution of articles by year, journal, leading author and highly cited papers

Figure 2 shows the chronological distribution of VCD in tourism and hospitality articles. Although the review was conducted for papers beginning with the first mention in 2010, the first paper on tourism and hospitality was not published until 2013. The overall pattern is the virtual absence of published articles until the 2020s, with 85% of the total sample published in the period 2020 to 2022.

Figure 2. Publications on value co-destruction in tourism and hospitality from 2010 to 2022.

Based on the results of the R package “bibliometrix,” the leading authors on the subject of VCD in tourism and hospitality are Erose Sthapit and Peter Björk, with four publications each. The authors of the three highly cited papers are Camilleri and Neuhofer for the article titled “Value co-creation and co-destruction in the Airbnb sharing economy” (Camilleri & Neuhofer, 2017, p. 180 citations), Smith for the article titled “The value co-destruction process: A customer resource perspective” (2013, p. 156 citations) and Dolan et al. for the article titled “Complaining practices on social media in tourism: A value co-creation and co-destruction perspective” (Dolan et al., 2019, p. 97 citations).

The table in Appendix A indicates that the 33 articles identified through the review were published in 24 different academic journals. The table also displays the frequency of papers published in each journal. Articles were published in various multidisciplinary journals and appear in tourism, hospitality, marketing, services and business journals.

Methods in use, data analysis technique, settings and perspectives on VCD in tourism and hospitality studies

The methodologies used in the studies were classified as being either quantitative, qualitative or mixed method (Table 1). Around half of the studies used predominantly qualitative methods (n = 17), drawing mainly on netnography, interviews and content analysis. Four studies triangulated their methods and employed multiple data sources to improve their reliability. Järvi et al. (2020), for example, used a combination of interviews, reflective diaries, and online reviews, while Sørensen et al. (2020) employed interviews, participant observation and a workshop. Other methods include quantitative analysis (n = 10).

Table 1. Methods used.

	Research methods	Number of publications	Percentage
1	Quantitative	10	30
	Surveys	9
	Data mining	1
2	Qualitative	17	52
	Netnography	6
	Interviews	4
	Content analysis	2
	Archival research	1
	Systematic literature review, case study and netnography	1
	Interview, participant observation and workshop	1
	Interview, reflective diary and online review Interview, focus group, visitor book comments and observation	11 1
3	Mixed methods	3	9
4	Conceptual papers	3	9

Empirical studies on VCD in tourism and hospitality have extended to different settings (Table 2). These studies can be separated into three strands. The first is linked to specific hospitality or tourism businesses, particularly hotels (n = 16). For example, Järvi et al. (2020) explored how script misalignment between hotels and their guests resulted in VCD for both parties. Camilleri and Neuhofer’s (2017) study examined VCD in the context of Airbnb, an online accommodation sharing platform, while Sthapit and Björk’s (2019) study focused on Uber, an online ride-sharing service. The second strand considers general tourism environments or tourism subcategories (wine tourism and wellness tourism) (n = 14). The third strand (n = 3) focuses on tourism destination experiences, including the use of internet travel forums and online communities.

Table 2. Settings considered in the extracted studies.

	Settings		Sub-settings	Number of studies
1		Hospitality and tourism businesses	Hotel Sharing economy (Airbnb and Uber) Airline Themed restaurant Museum	7 6 1 1 1
2	Tourism environments		General tourism Wine tourism Wellness (spa) tourism Ecotourism Volunteer tourism	10 1 1 1 1
3	Other		Travel destination experience Online travel forum Online travel communities	1 1 1
	Total			33

Aside from the three conceptual studies (Buxton & Michopoulou, 2021, Freire & Veríssimo, 2021, Plé & Demangeot, 2020), most of the articles in the review focused on customer’s perspectives of VCD (n = 22). Three studies examined VCD from the service providers’ perspective (Guan et al., 2022, Shirahada & Wilson, 2022, Ukeje et al., 2021), while three studies included both the customers’ and service providers’ perspectives (Guan et al., 2020, Järvi et al., 2020, Sørensen et al., 2020). Only two studies included multiple actors’ perspectives. Specifically, one study focused on host/providers, guests/users, residents/locals and competitors/hoteliers in the context of the accommodation sharing economy (Buhalis et al., 2020), while the other was on accommodation facilities managers, tour guides, local businesses owners, tours and attraction service providers, municipal governments, municipal tourism council, guides and drivers’ association, a shopkeepers’ chamber, and third-sector organisations (Codá et al., 2022).

Conceptualisation of VCD and theories used

The majority of the studies (n = 24) conceptualised VCD by drawing on Plé and Chumpitaz Cáceres’s (2010) definition. Alternate definitions cited include Echeverri and Skålen (2011), Lefebvre and Ple (2011), Smith (2013), Prior and Marcos-Cuevas (2016) and Luo et al. (2019) (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Conceptualisation of value co-destruction.

In general, the chosen theoretical basis for VCD was SDL, but some articles related to other theories. Out of the 33 peer-reviewed articles in the review, 14 linked VCD with theories other than SDL (Table 3). Some articles examined VCD through a sociological lens, drawing on theories such as practice theory, institutional theory and transformative service theory. Others analysed VCD through a psychological lens, using, for example, script theory, person-environment fit theory and attribution theory. Others again drew on theories of organisational behaviour, such as the conservation of resource theory. One article mentioned broken windows theory (drawn from criminology), and another touched upon three-factor theory (from environmental psychology) including service logic (service marketing). One article used mentioned multiple theories: information processing theory, expectation confirmation theory (psychology) and social exchange theory (sociology and psychology) (Kim et al., 2022) (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Theories used to understand value co-destruction.

Table 3. Summary of the antecedents of value co-destruction.

Antecedents
Internal	External
Loss of resources (esteem, self-efficacy, physical/emotion effort, hope and knowledge) (Smith, 2013) Unpleasant feelings, emotions and impressions (Camilleri & Neuhofer, 2017) Disconfirmation with previous electronic word-of-mouth, distrust of previous electronic word-of-mouth and distrust of the website (Nam et al., 2020) Goal congruence (Guan et al., 2021) Overly conscious of one’s role and misuse of resources in the presence of others (Kim et al., 2022) Providing feedback and engaging in communication (Kim et al., 2022)	Loss of resources (material, time and money) (Smith, 2013) Negative opinions about the destination, lack of meeting and interaction with host, unclear communication, unpleasant host, not recommending place or host, not offering good value for money, not recommending public transport, host not recommending guests, unappreciative guests and hostile hosts (Camilleri & Neuhofer, 2017) Lack of solution, lack of social support and lack of engagement (Dolan et al., 2019) Uber drivers’ poor behaviour and poor customer service (Sthapit & Björk, 2019) Negative customer-to-customer interactions (Luo et al., 2019) Hotel breakfast (Sthapit & Björk, 2020) Inability to provide a service, contextual rigidity, incoherent marketing communication, excessive expectations, insufficient communication and inappropriate behaviour (Järvi et al., 2020) Contagious deviant behaviours (Plé & Demangeot, 2020) Uncontrolled and rapid expansion of the sharing economy (Buhalis et al., 2020) Lack of information provided by staff (Sørensen et al., 2020) Negative microblogging word-of-mouth (Gkritzali et al., 2020) Negativity of electronic word-of-mouth (Nam et al., 2020) Communication style differences and knowledge-base compatibility (Guan et al., 2021) Leadership support, supportive climate and management’s commitment (Ukeje et al., 2021) Inadequate communication and unethical actions (Sthapit & Björk, 2021) Social loafing and knowledge hiding (Lv et al., 2021) Perceived roles of other tourists (Han et al., 2021) Trolling (Tham & Wang, 2021) Absence of information for a customer to understand the spa facilities and lack of signage to navigate through the environment (Buxton & Michopoulou, 2021) Artefacts (childlike presentation of wine thematic artefacts, tourist trap and wine advertisement and technology driven wine scenography), interfaces (technology failures, technology lack of engagement, technology running costs and poor value for money) persons (perception of being an inhuman robot, limited human contact and lack of communication with service staff) and process (ill-defined and confusing layout and the visiting process being technology dependent) (Kirova, 2021) Basic factors (measures taken within the scope of food and beverage services and the level of compliance to pandemic measures by other customers) and performance factors (general pandemic measures and measures taken within rooms and the level of compliance to pandemic measures by staff) (Arica et al., 2021) Misalignment of practices and routines (Assiouras et al., 2022) Organisational inducement (Guan et al., 2022) Airbnb customer service and hosts’ conduct (Sthapit, Stone & Björk, 2022) Use of information (misinterpreted or not given correctly), resources integration (loss), feedback (lack and quality of) and (did) engagement (Codá et al., 2022) Misuse of resources by customers (Kim et al., 2022) Conflicting views and information gap (Winston et al., 2022)

An organising framework for VCD (antecedents, dimensions and outcomes)

The use of an organising framework is crucial to an effective SLR (Hulland & Houston, 2020). The purpose of such a framework typically is to unite and give structure to the relationships found across the body of work (Paul & Benito, 2018). Also, the framework offers an integrated, synthesised overview of existing research (Lim et al., 2021). Accordingly, and based on Lim et al. (2021), this section sets out a proposed organising framework for the present study. This framework is based on the antecedents, dimensions and outcomes of VCD in the field of tourism and hospitality (Figure 5).

Figure 5. An organising framework for value co-destruction in tourism and hospitality.

Table 3 provides a summary of the antecedents of VCD in tourism and hospitality. Drawing on Qiao et al.’s (2021) study, these antecedents can be categorised as internal and external. Internal factors include individual goals, motivations, expectations and needs. External factors, in contrast, include identification with groups, interactions and policies that have an influence on the individual’s behaviour. The antecedents can also be categorised as either generic or context-specific (e.g. specific to the context of spa tourism or Airbnb accommodation) (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Value co-destruction in tourism and hospitality: Generic and context-specific antecedents.

Out of the 33 peer-reviewed articles, only one sought to develop a scale of VCD behaviour in tourism. Guan et al. (2020) study developed a 29-item VCD behaviour in tourism scale using employees and customers as the main objects of research and employing interviews and questionnaires for data collection. Their study proposed a measurement scale of VCD behaviour in tourism that consists of five dimensions: poor interpersonal communication behaviour, poor information interaction behaviour, irresponsible customer behaviour, employee contract violation behaviour and irresponsible employee behaviour.

The review suggests that VCD is linked to outcome variables such as decline in well-being (Smith, 2013, Sthapit & Björk, 2019), negative word-of-mouth (Arıca et al., 2022, Lv et al., 2021, Sthapit & Björk, 2019, Yeh et al., 2020), customer-switching behaviour (Lv et al., 2021, Sthapit and Björk, 2019), discontinuance (Sthapit & Björk, 2019, 2021), destruction of a destination’s value (Gkritzali et al., 2020), counterproductive work (Lv et al., 2021) and reduced intention to visit a destination (Duverger & Thomas, 2021) (Table 4).

Table 4. Summary of the outcomes of value co-destruction.

	Outcomes	Selected Studies
1	Decline in well-being	Smith (2013); Sthapit and Björk (2019)
2	Negative word-of-mouth	Lv et al. (2021); Sthapit and Björk (2019); Yeh et al. (2020); Arıca et al. (2022)
3	Customer-switching behaviour	Lv et al. (2021); Sthapit and Björk (2019)
4	Discontinuance	Sthapit and Björk (2019, 2021)
5	Destruction of a destination’s value	Gkritzali et al. (2020)
6	Counterproductive work	Lv et al. (2021)
7	Reduced intention to visit a destination	Duverger and Thomas (2021)

Discussion and agenda for future research

This article has systematically reviewed and synthesised existing research on VCD in tourism and hospitality from 2010–2022. The analysis of 33 peer-reviewed articles identified key themes and were summarised in an organising framework (Figure 3). The review revealed that research on VCD in tourism and hospitality remains fragmented and several important gaps exist. Accordingly, several recommendations for future research are presented: the first three linked to theoretical aspect and the last related to methodology. The intention is that effort needs to be focused on filling these gaps to best advance knowledge on this topic and its application. Appendix C presents a set of future research areas to advance knowledge on VCD in tourism and hospitality.

Further theorisation, application of the topic and scale development to operationalise the concept of VCD

Of the 33 articles, 28 were published in 2020, 2021 and 2022, suggesting that VCD has received extensive research attention in recent years in the field of -tourism and hospitality is growing, however, remains at a preliminary stage. This mirrors a relative lack of negative accounts in the value formation processes (Echeverri & Skålen, 2011, Plé, 2017, Plé et al., 2010). However, given that service experiences in the tourism and hotel industries are usually characterised as highly interactive, intangible, and idiosyncratic (FitzPatrick et al., 2013), VCD is not uncommon. In fact, VCD is a considered a stumbling block to the rapid development of the tourism and hospitality industry as displeased customers can cause major reputational damage and loss of business. Thus, from a service provider’s perspective, to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace, the managers of tourism and hospitality businesses need to take effective measures to reduce the phenomenon and specific behaviors of VCD that appear in their businesses (Guan et al., 2022). In addition, resource integrations during the value formation processes are ever-changing across service contexts (Echeverri & Skålen, 2011) and mitigating VCD in the context of tourism and hospitality will help deepen VCD research (Assiouras et al., 2022). We call for more studies to be undertaken on VCD in tourism and hospitality which will be not just theoretically important but also beneficial to the industry. On one hand, such work can enhance our understanding of this phenomenon, which further complements the VCC literature and extends SDL towards a complete theoretical framework. On the other hand, additional research is also likely to reveal insightful managerial implications. This will help practitioners to implement strategies that will most strongly benefit their business.

Although the existing literature has criticised SDL’s overly simplistic and abstract assumption of service interactions, all the studies in this review are set broadly within the theoretical framework of SDL. Many of the studies in the review (n = 14) did, however, also link VCD to other theories from other disciplines, including sociology, psychology, organisational behaviour, criminology, environmental psychology and service marketing. Therefore, a further potential avenue for future research may be to draw more fully on theories drawn from other disciplines.

Future studies could also benefit from linking VCD with the strategic management literature. There are clear parallels between VCD and the resource-based view of the firm (e.g. Wernerfelt, 1984). The resource-based view proposes that business organisations build and employ resource capabilities to create a competitive advantage and improve their performance. This has clear relevance to the processes of VCC and VCD, which involve the organisation attempting to integrate its resources with those of the consumer in the course of the service encounter. Broaden-and-build theory, drawn from the field of positive psychology, argues that positive emotions encourage individuals to engage further and build more skills and psychological resources, which they can then use in the future (Fredrickson, 2001). This theory could be applied to examine the role and impact of customer emotions on well-being during collaborative interactions between the service provider and the customer. Lastly, future studies could use self-determination theory in the field of psychology. This widely acknowledged theory of motivation and well-being argues that a person’s motivation to engage in a particular activity depends significantly upon how far such engagement can satisfy their inner psychological needs (Ahn & Back, 2019).

This review finds very little scale development work on VCD in the tourism and hospitality literature. In fact, only one study developed a scale. Future studies should validate the existing scale in different settings. Other studies have utilised constructs and measurement scales to assess VCD that were not established in the tourism and hospitality context. A weakness of using generalised scales is that all items may not apply to the specific context of their application. This runs the risk of misalignment between scale and context, thereby limiting the study’s contributions. As a result, it is important to develop a multi-dimensional, parsimonious scale specific to VCD but generic within the context of tourism and hospitality, and to adopt a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods and standard scale-development process, to operationalise the concept using a reliable and valid measure. This would help to capture a more comprehensive taxonomy of dimensions of VCD and can be valuable in examining whether any dominant dimensions emerged.

Fostering a broader focus on cross-cultural studies and a need for studies in different hospitality and tourism settings

Besides the conceptual articles (Plé & Demangeot, 2020, Buxton & Michopoulou, 2021, Freire & Veríssimo, 2021), many studies in this review focus on a single country and developed countries with Western participants. Research on VCD has a geographical bias and emerging economies remain under-represented. Current findings might or might not be applicable to other cultural contexts and countries. Also, existing studies do not use cross-country data (i.e. comparative studies) and are not conducted in cross-cultural settings. The value concept is fundamentally rooted in culture (Akaka et al., 2015), insofar as cultural differences (e.g. individualism vs. collectivism) influence the perceptions customers have of the behaviours of others in the process of forming value. For example, people who live in individualistic societies might be less affected by the behaviours of others because they based their behaviour on their own attitudes rather than group norms (Triandis, 2001). In addition, the outcome of the process of resource integration between supplier and consumer, this context, diminished, dissatisfactory, and/or negatively perceived value, is experienced subjectively across a wide range of different domains including cultural (Cabiddu et al., 2019, Makkonen & Olkkonen, 2017, Vafeas et al., 2016). This implies that VCD antecedents, dimensions and outcomes are very likely to vary between cultures. Accordingly, more cross-cultural studies on VCD are needed to overcome the present geographical bias.

Much of the existing research on VCD in the tourism and hospitality fields has focused on certain settings, in particular hotels and general tourism, but there are many other contexts to explore. Because tourism encompasses interactions with many types of businesses, researchers could better study VCD across contexts. Future studies in these new settings are necessary, as it cannot be assumed that the findings are directly translatable across different settings. More research would also be able to determine which attributes exist in multiple settings compared to specific business environments. There may also be effects across different actors on the same trip.

Greater consideration of service-provider and multiple-actor perspectives

Exploration of VCD remains predominantly customer-centric (n = 22). Examining service-provider and multiple-actor perspectives (customer or guest, host or service provider, residents and competitors) has received little scholarly attention. Only three studies examined VCD from the service providers’ perspectives, while three studies included customer and service providers’ perspectives. Also, two studies included multiple actors’ perspectives. As there are multiple actors in the hospitality and tourism contexts, other voices may help illuminate new findings. Given that VCD implies the poor integration of resources by one or both parties in the service encounter, studies that seek to understand different actors’ perspectives on why and how VCD arises could produce much-needed insights into the dynamics of the phenomenon. Future research should also aim to achieve an improved understanding of the different kinds of resources that are contributed by different actors and which of these are likeliest to result in VCD. Further investigation of the antecedents and outcomes of VCD from actors’ perspectives would also be welcome, as this could help identify gaps between consumers’ perceptions of VCD and those of other actors.

Greater use of on-site data collection and engaging in mixed methods analysis

The analysis of methodologies used in VCD studies in the tourism and hospitality field found that qualitative approaches and cross-sectional data were the most frequently used. These studies mainly applied netnography (e.g. online reviews) and interviews, which can capture tourists’ remembered experiences, but not their real-time on-site experiences. These studies may suffer from subjectivity, time-lag bias between the actual trip and recall and possible false memory creation (Schacter, 1995). To overcome such problems, future studies could apply less conventional research methods, such as the in-situ observation of actors’ reactions to collaborative interactions as the service experience unfolds on-site, the dynamics between resource integration and possible misuse of resources. Another unconventional method would be the use of interactive simulations, perhaps undertaken in a virtual reality environment, to assess the unfolding dynamics of VCD. The use of such methods could help researchers and practitioners understand how best to defuse or mitigate conflicts as they play out, thereby avoiding the decline in the well-being of one or both actors.

Only one identified study employed mixed methods. Compared to qualitative and quantitative research methods, mixed methods and longitudinal research are noticeably less well-represented among the studies that have been published to date. The benefits of using mixed methods in research are well documented, particularly in that their application allows more complex research to be effectively addressed. Indeed, it is argued that mixed methods can assist researchers in exploring divergent viewpoints within the data, thereby allowing contextual influences to be identified and allowing the analysis to become more nuanced (Ivankova & Wingo, 2018). Mixed methods can also allow both exploratory and confirmatory questions to be addressed, enabling a potentially very powerful blend of induction and deduction to be employed within a single study (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009). Future studies that integrate quantitative and qualitative datasets would help achieve a more robust and insightful understanding of VCD in theory and practice. Longitudinal studies could also help researchers capture the dynamics of repeated service interactions more accurately.

Conclusion, implications and limitations

This article has mapped the current state of VCD research in tourism and hospitality. Using a SLR, this study examined 33 peer-reviewed articles from 24 journals retrieved from Web of Science, Scopus and EBSCO Host. Most publications were in journals that focus on tourism and hospitality, although some appeared in journals with a more general inter-disciplinary scope. Research into VCD is quite recent and growing, but still quite limited, with a notable contextual imbalance. It is most heavily based on Plé and Chumpitaz Cáceres’s (2010) definition of VCD. Most articles used qualitative research methods with limited mixed-method studies. Overall, studies have focused on customers’ perspectives while neglecting service providers’ viewpoints. The proposed organising framework can be used to gain a detailed understanding of the antecedents, dimensions and outcomes of VCD in tourism and hospitality and serves as a solid foundation for an in-depth examination of the phenomenon. Lastly, this study identified four recommendations as part of a future research agenda.

Theoretical implications

This study responds to demands from the tourism and hospitality literature for research that contributes to achieve a comprehensive, holistic and widely agreed understanding of the VCD concept (Guan et al., 2021, Sthapit et al., 2022). The aims of this study were to: (1) map the evolution of research on VCD in tourism and hospitality; (2) identify research gaps, and (3) provide a future research agenda for scholarly work. Adopting state‐of‐the art practices, this study systematically reviews, synthesises, and integrates the extant body of knowledge across tourism and hospitality literature on VCD. The study identifies several gaps in the literature and propose the following four main recommendations for future research for advancing and enriching the body of knowledge in VCD in tourism and hospitality from different perspectives, including theory, context perspectives and methods: (1) further theorisation, application of the topic and scale development to operationalise the concept of VCD; (2) fostering a broader focus on cross-cultural studies and a need for studies in different hospitality and tourism settings; (3) greater consideration of service-provider and multiple-actor perspectives; and (4) greater use of on-site data collection and engaging in mixed methods analysis. This study serves as a foundation for researchers and provides a holistic understanding of VCD in the context of tourism and hospitality.

Managerial implications

In terms of managerial implications, given that VCD leads to negative cognitive outcomes (e.g. destruction of destination’s value), affective outcomes (e.g. decline in well-being) and behavioural outcomes (e.g. intention to visit the destination, counter productive work, discontinuance, negative word-of-mouth), tourism and hospitality service providers should hold employees accountable, for example, Airbnb host, customer service personnel, front line workers when they are reported as unprofessional by customers (tourists, guests). In addition, tourism and hospitality businesses’ top management should invest more resources to minimise the negative experiences of its customers by clearly defining employees, hosts responsibilities and training them in hospitableness to enact behaviours that are considered respectful and responsive to customer requirements. This can reduce negative experiences and a decline in well-being among customers (tourists, guests) in different service settings. When employees (hosts) are provided with clear responsibilities, customers (tourists, guests) can be serviced efficiently, which reflects service presence. Employees should be trained to remain well-mannered and should not discriminate against any guests but treat them all in a friendly manner, including settling any problems they face related to the service offered. Moreover, policies pertaining to service provision should be standardised, clear and universally applicable to all staff. The target must be for any service advertised to be provided with one hundred percent consistency. Furthermore, service providers should engage in active communication with their customers and respond to their inquiries in real time, for example by providing updated information related to booking. Lastly, tourism and hospitality service providers need to recruit qualified service personnel and equip them with service-recovery skills through training and control mechanisms. Such training should focus on upgrading their skills for handling complaints and on effective service recovery efforts after a failed interaction. This should include enabling employees to promptly address customer complaints by making suitable apologies, which may lead to efficient value co-recovery.

Limitations

This article extends extant literature on VCD in the field of tourism and hospitality but, as with any other article, has certain limitations. First, the final sample consisted of 33 articles and included articles written in English. Second, other sources, for example, viewpoints, conference papers, research notes, research letters, editorial notes, book chapters, book reviews, conference proceedings or non-published studies were not included in the review, which is another limitation. Third, only four keywords were used for the search: value co-destruction, co-destruction of value, co-destruct value and value codestruction. These terms needed to appear in the title, abstract or keywords of the prospective papers. Lastly, only three scientific databases were used to identify articles: Web of Science, Scopus and EBSCO Host.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Appendix A

Table A1. Published research on value co-destruction in tourism and hospitality from 2010 to 2022.

	Journals	No. of articles
Tourism and Hospitality		24
1	Current Issues in Tourism	3
2	Tourism Planning and Development	3
3	International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management	3
4	Tourism Management	2
5	Tourism Management Perspectives	2
6	Tourism Review	2
7	Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism	1
8	Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing	1
9	Tourist Studies	1
10	Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research	1
11	Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights	1
12	Annals of Tourism Research	1
13	Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management	1
14	Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration	1
15	Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism	1
Marketing		4
1	European Journal of Marketing	1
2	Psychology & Marketing	1
3	Services Marketing Quarterly	1
4	European Journal of Marketing	1
Business		2
1	Journal of Business Research	1
2	Business Process Management Journal	1
Other		3
1	Information Systems Frontier	1
2	Computers in Human Behaviour	1
3	Journal of Service Theory and Practice	1
Total		33

Appendix B.

List of papers included in this review

1. Arica, R., Çakir, O., & Sesliokuyucu, O. S. (2021). Examining reviews on hotels’ measures about COVID-19 from a value cocreation and value codestruction perspective. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights (ahead-of-print).

2. Arıca, R., Polat, I., Cobanoglu, C., Çorbacı, A., Chen, P.-J., & Hsu, M.-J. (2022). Value co-destruction and negative e-WOM behavior: The mediating role of tourist citizenship. Tourism Review, 77(4), 1116-1134.

3. Assiouras, I., Vallström, N., Skourtis, G., & Buhalis, D. (2022). Value propositions during service mega-disruptions: Exploring value co-creation and value co-destruction in service recovery. Annals of Tourism Research, 97, 103501.

4. Buhalis, D., Andreu, L., & Gnoth, J. (2020). The dark side of the sharing economy: Balancing value co-creation and value co-destruction. Psychology & Marketing, 37(5), 689-704.

5. Buxton, L., & Michopoulou, E. (2021). Value co-creation and co-destruction: Considerations of spa servicescapes. Tourism Planning & Development, 18(2), 210-225.

6. Camilleri, J., & Neuhofer, B. (2017). Value co-creation and co-destruction in the Airbnb sharing economy. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(9), 2322-2340.

7. Codá, R. C., Farias, J. S., & Dias, C. (2022). Interactive value formation and lessons learned from Covid-19: The Brazilian case. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism (ahead-of-print)

8. Dolan, R., Seo, Y., & Kemper, J. (2019). Complaining practices on social media in tourism: A value co-creation and co-destruction perspective. Tourism Management, 73, 35-45.

9. Duverger, P., & Thomas, V. L. (2021). The negative impact of deviant imagery on consumers’ intentions to visit a tourist destination. Services Marketing Quarterly, 42(3–4), 162-179.

10. Freire, R. R., & Veríssimo, J. M. C. (2021). Mapping cocreation and co-destruction in tourism: A bibliographic coupling analysis. Anatolia, 32(2), 207-217.

11. Gkritzali, A., Mavragani, E., & Gritzalis, D. (2020). Negative MWOM and value co-destruction during destination crises. Business Process Management Journal, 26(4), 839-856.

12. Guan, X., Gong, J., & Huan, T-C. (2022). Trick or treat! How to reduce co-destruction behavior in tourism workplace based on conservation of resources theory? Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 52, 42-49.

13. Guan, X., Gong, J., Xie, L., & Huan, T-C. (2020). Scale development of value co-destruction behavior in tourism. Tourism Management Perspectives, 36, 100757.

14. Guan, X., Peng, J., & Huan. T-C. (2021). A study on the influencing factors of value co-destruction behavior in tourism interaction from the perspective of customer subjective fitting. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 38(7), 742-757.

15. Han, X., Praet, C. L. C., & Wang, L. (2021). Tourist – tourist social interaction in the co-creation and co-destruction of tourism experiences among Chinese outbound tourists. Tourism Planning & Development, 18(2), 189-209.

16. Järvi, H., Keränen, J., Ritala, P., & Vilko, J. (2020). Value co-destruction in hotel services: Exploring the misalignment of cognitive scripts among customers and providers. Tourism Management, 77, 104030.

17. Kim, H., Shin, H. H. and So, K.K.F. (2022). Actor value formation in Airbnb: insight from multi-source data. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 34(7), 2773-2797.

18. Kirova, V. (2021). Value co-creation and value co-destruction through interactive technology in tourism: The case of “La Cité du Vin” wine museum, Bordeaux, France. Current Issues in Tourism, 24(5), 637-650.

19. Luo, J. (G)., Wong, I. A., King, B., Liu, M. T., & Huang, G. (2019). Co-creation and co-destruction of service quality through customer-to-customer interactions: Why prior experience matters. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31(3), 1309-1329.

20. Lv., X., Zhang, R., & Li, Q. (2021). Value co-destruction: The influence of failed interactions on members’ behaviors in online travel communities. Computers in Human Behaviour, 122, 106829.

21. Nam, K., Baker, J., Ahmad, N., & Goo, J. (2020). Dissatisfaction, disconfirmation, and distrust: An empirical examination of value co-destruction through negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Information Systems Frontiers, 22, 113-130.

22. Plé, L., & Demangeot, C. (2020). Social contagion of online and offline deviant behaviors and its value outcomes: The case of tourism ecosystems. Journal of Business Research, 117, 886-896.

23. Shirahada, K., & Wilson, A. (2022). Well-being creation by senior volunteers in a service provider context. Journal of Service Theory and Practice (ahead-of-print).

24. Smith, A. M. (2013). The value co-destruction process: A customer resource perspective. European Journal of Marketing, 47(11/12), 1889-1909.

25. Sørensen, F., Fuglsang, L., Sundbo, J., & Jensen, J. F. (2020). Tourism practices and experience value creation: The case of a themed attraction restaurant. Tourist Studies, 20(3), 2718-297.

26. Sthapit, E., & Björk, P. (2019). Sources of value co-destruction: Uber customer perspectives. Tourism Review, 74(4), 780-794.

27. Sthapit, E., & Björk, P. (2020). Towards a better understanding of interactive value formation: Three value outcomes perspective. Current Issues in Tourism, 23(6), 693-706.

28. Sthapit, E., & Björk, P. (2021). Interactive value formation: Drivers and outcomes from Airbnb guests’ perspectives. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 21(2), 129-147.

29. Sthapit, E., Stone, M. J., & Björk, P. (2022). Sources of value co-creation, co-destruction and co-recovery at Airbnb in the context of the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration (ahead-of-print).

30. Tham, A., & Wang, M. (2021). Revisiting online tourism forums as vehicles for value co-destruction. Tourism Planning & Development, 18(2), 125-146.

31. Ukeje, U. E., Lasisi, T. T., Eluwole, K. K., Titov, E., & Ozturen, A. (2021). Organizational level antecedents of value co-destruction in hospitality industry: An investigation of the moderating role of employee attribution. Current Issues in Tourism, 24(6), 842-856.

32. Winston, E., Ferdous, A. S., Rentschler, R., Azmat, F., & Robertson, N. (2022). Value creation process and outcomes in social inclusion focused services. European Journal of Marketing, 56(3), 840-868.

33. Yeh, S. S., Fotiadis, A. K., Chiang, T. Y., Ho, J. L., & Huan, T. C. (2020). Exploring the value co-destruction model for on-line deviant behaviors of hotel customers. Tourism Management Perspectives, 33, 100622.

Appendix C.

Future research areas on value co-destruction in tourism and hospitality

Table

No.	Thematic areas	Research gaps	Research questions
1	Further theorisation, application of the topic and scale development to operationalise the concept of value co-destruction	Compared to value co-creation concept, there are considerably fewer studies on VCD. Existing studies lack solid theoretical underpinnings. Lack of scale development in VCD in tourism and hospitality fields.	How can future studies on VCD complement the VCC literature? How can future studies on VCD extend service-dominant logic towards a complete theoretical framework with an unbiased view? How can future studies on VCD offer more intriguing theoretical and managerial implications, thereby increasing the volume of contributions in this area? What theories from other literature/disciplines can be used to better explain VCD in tourism and hospitality fields? Do new scale developments in other tourism and hospitality settings help establish a better understanding of VCD? How? What are the antecedents, dimensions and outcomes of VCD in tourism and hospitality?
2	Fostering a broader focus on cross-cultural studies and a need for studies in different hospitality and tourism settings	Research on VCD in tourism and hospitality focuses on a single country and developed countries with Western participants. Much of the existing research on VCD in tourism and hospitality fields investigated in this review focused on certain setting, in particular, hotels and general tourism.	How does culture influence the formation of VCD? Are there differences between, for example, Western and non-Western tourists? How does culture add to the phenomenon of VCD? What are the dimensions of VCD in different tourism and hospitality settings? Are there generic dimensions across different tourism and hospitality settings?
3	Greater use of on-site data collection – and engaging in mixed methods analysis	Qualitative approaches and cross-sectional data are the most frequently used approaches. Predominance of the use of qualitative methods in VCD in tourism and hospitality studies.	How can VCD be measured more effectively? Can on-site studies help to avoid subjectivity, time-lag bias and false memory creation among customers (tourists)? How can the incongruence between remembered and on-site negative experiences be addressed? When gathering data linked to VCD, does the use of mixed methods help to capture such failed interactions? Which quantitative and qualitative methods help in gathering more accurate accounts of VCD? What other research methods can help to better understand VCD processes? How can multiple methods be combined to understand VCD?
4	Greater consideration of service-providers’ and multiple-actors’ (e.g. residents and competitors) perspectives	Little focus and scholarly attention exist on service providers and multiple-actor perspectives on VCD.	What are the motivations and circumstances for the accidental or intentional misuse of its own resources or those of others by a service provider or other actors during collaborative interactions? What are the antecedents, dimensions and outcomes of value co-destruction from service providers’ perspectives? How can service providers avoid situations that destroy value? What are the gaps between tourist perceptions and service providers’ and other actors’ notions of VCD?