VALUE CO-CREATION ENHANCING DESTINATION RESILIENCE THROUGH SMARTNESS.

The sustainability and competitive advantage of a destination must be extended to the standard of the resilience within the destination. Tourism, a “complex business ecosystem” must collectively manage their inherent vulnerabilities to crisis and disasters. This paper contributes to tourism literature by demonstrating the potential of smartness to increase destination resilience through value co-creation for all stakeholders through their real time responsiveness to crisis and disasters, ultimately strengthening resilience. Secondary research was conducted using a multi-disciplinary approach to understand the tenets that were key in the development of the core concepts of the research. Value co-creation within tourism has been primarily restricted to the consumer organization relationship. The discussion, however, must be elevated and reflected in the internal destination systems and processes to enhance the traveller experience, safety and security, which, ulimately, is value for all. Value co-creation is one of the inherent elements and outcomes of the Real Time Resilience and augers well for all stakeholders as it capitalizes on smartness to enhance decision making during crisis and disasters