Abstract
This thesis presents a comprehensive investigation into enhancing tourism experiences through strategic changes in management and marketing practices. The research adopts an interdisciplinary approach, integrating social and environmental psychology with organisational theories to comprehend the intricate dynamics of the tourism industry and its customer-centric transformation. The first part focuses on the role of servant leadership in tourism organisations, emphasising its alignment with service and innovation climates for strategic service differentiation. It highlights the importance of clear strategic objectives and a co-creation culture to facilitate value co-creation with stakeholders. The findings demonstrate how servant leadership fosters collaboration, innovation, and customer-centricity, making it a crucial strategic change for enhancing customer value. This knowledge directly informs the second part, investigating how experiential marketing practices can align with the customer-centric vision. This research continues by exploring the impact of media formats and narrative structures on customer attitudes and intentions on social media, using psychophysiological lab experiments. It reveals that destinations and tourism organisations can use different strategies to achieve different goals. The findings demonstrate that videos are more effective to convey information for new audiences while photos and audio can be appropriate for existing customers. The study reveals that first-person and third-person narrators influence emotional responses and consumer preferences differently, with first-person narratives enhancing trust and third-person narratives conveying emotions. Overall, this thesis contributes significantly to the field of tourism research, providing practical guidance for managers and marketers. The innovative use of psychophysiological lab experiments enhances understanding of consumer behaviour, laying the foundation for future research in this dynamic and evolving industry.