Visitors’ experience through smart technologies

Purpose – The paper aims to underline the effects on value co-creation (Grönroos, 2008; Vargo et al., 2008) generated by the deployment of smart technologies in the cultural sector (Lang et al., 2009); the authors want to deepen the role of users in enhancing visit experience and in coproducing services (Grönroos and Helle, 2010) in a cultural heritage context, to stress their proactive role (Tallon and Walker, 2008). We focused on the interpretation of the value-inexperience (Helkkula et al., 2012) and on the role played by technology in favouring co-production activities and the switch from users to co-producers. Design/Methodology/approach – A netnographic approach has been chosen (Kozinets, 2002, 2010a) and the research was performed thanks to a content analysis through NVivo (Krippendorf, 2012; Bazeley and Jackson, 2013), aiming at acquiring insights from data collected through the social networking sites (SNS) related to a single case study, due to its uniqueness, namely the sculpture exhibition “Il bello o il vero”, framed in a project planned and implemented by the Cultural District DATABENC. Findings – The research underlines the main features related to the cultural experience through smart technologies before, during, and after the visit. The results are used for a first attempt towards the delineation of users’ contribution in co-producing new services when stimulated through a contest. The smart technologies and the chances offered by social networks together with users’ skills all played a fundamental role, leading to consider users as co-producers and even as comarketers, due to what they do when visiting the part of exhibition they co-produced in the contest. Research limitations/implications – The analysis can be performed also for other cultural experiences and data collection from SNS can be extended through direct interviews with informants (Kozinets, 2010) and survey to visitors (Bryman and Bell, 2011) to achieve a more complete perspective on customers’ perceptions. Practical implications – The characteristics of co-production in cultural experiences allow the delineation of the fundamental issues that cultural institutions and firms have to consider during the delineation of a cultural project when deploying their core activities even through new technologies. Originality/value – This study depicts the role played by the current development of smart technologies within the cultural sector and shows the linkages of this phenomenon with the value co-production to improve experiences and empower value-in-use. The focus on digital culture services can complement the already achievable contributions on digital culture goods (Lang et al., 2009).