The Vikings Are Here! Experiencing Volunteering at a Viking Heritage Site

Abstract

Co-creation in tourist experiences is well established, and tourism managers are increasingly aware of tourists' role in the creation of own experiences. Other actors are often involved in this creation, and the question is, what they experience and gain from their involvements. Heritage sites offer complex, negotiable products that depend on interaction to fully emerge and form valuable experiences, and they are therefore relevant to explore in this context. Based on theory of the heritage experience, an analysis is undertaken to explore various levels and dynamics of involvement. Co-creation literature addresses the complex processes of co-creation, which indicate that interaction is at the centre of involvement, and this exploratory research therefore zooms in on interaction in re-enactors' experiences at a heritage site. This study is based on a Danish Viking site, Fyrkat, where a volunteer Viking re-enactment group engages in activities at the site, which suggests personal outcomes and inherent values along the lines of exercising interests in history, living out heritage, and socialising with like-minded peers. The paper provides knowledge of a dimension of co-created experiences that has been paid little attention, and thus contributes to a new understanding of co-creation in the experience of tourism.

Key Words:

• heritage re-enactment
• experience co-creation
• Viking tourism
• heritage volunteering

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. All quotes presented in the analysis are from the focus group interview, May 2012. The focus group interview was conducted in English, and every quote is kept in original language.