T:\T&F\US\WTTM\WTTM27(7)\Finals\WTTM_A_519677.dvi Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 27:723–735, 2010 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1054-8408 print / 1540-7306 online DOI: 10.1080/10548408.2010.519677 A VISITOR-FOCUSED ASSESSMENT OF NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH: THE CASE OF QUILT GARDENS TOURSM IN NORTHERN INDIANA’S AMISH COUNTRY Geunhee Lee Iis P. Tussyadiah Florian Zach ABSTRACT. Understanding the needs and wants of consumers in the process of new product devel- opment has been recognized as an essential aspect of preparing effective marketing strategies for the success of business. The new product development strategy has now moved into Consumer-Driven Innovation (CDI), which not only asks consumers about their needs and wants but actually involves them in the product design, promotion, and even assessment processes. Informed by the new concept of CDI, this study aims at identifying to what extent visitors as tourism product consumers and co-pro- ducers can be involved in a new product development process and reinvent the products by providing ideas and suggestions with their own creative insights. More specifically, using data collected from a trip diary and an online survey with 273 respondents, this article examines visitor assessment on a newly launched product, Quilt Gardens TourSM, in Northern Indiana’s Amish Country. The data were analyzed using geo-visualization of tourist spatiotemporal mobility, descriptive statistics, and qualita- tive analysis of visitors’ descriptions. The results show that the visitors are central role players in a new product development process, adding their creativity to the tour itinerary and design elements. Several lessons and significance for future development of the tour are provided. KEYWORDS. Consumer-Driven Innovation (CDI), new product development, visitor-focused assessment INTRODUCTION In the recent highly competitive marketplace, new product development has been proven to be one of the vital factors to bring the growth and prosperity to most product and service providers (Danneels, 2002; Zirger & Maidique, 1990). It is also emphasized that the new product development should be both timely Geunhee Lee (E-mail: ghlee@temple.edu), Iis P. Tussyadiah (E-mail: iist@temple.edu), and Florian Zach (E-mail: fzach@temple.edu) are affiliated with the School of Tourism & Hospitality Management at Temple University, 1700 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. Address correspondence to: Geunhee Lee at the above address. and responsive to consumer needs and wants (Gruner & Homburg, 2000; Olson, Walker, & Ruekert, 1995) because it is consumers who judge the ultimate success of the new products and services (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1987; Brown & Eisenhardt, 1995). Both academics and practitioners in market- ing have put a greater importance in under- standing consumers’ needs to provide effective 723 724 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING and appropriate marketing strategies. Howard (1983) argued that successful firms are more likely to be consumer-oriented than unsuc- cessful firms, thus marketing should serve as the basis for strategy decisions. Furthermore, Gruner and Homburg (2000) pointed out that information on consumer needs and user expe- riences are viewed as resources companies depend upon to successfully develop new prod- ucts. Consumers also have often been found to be the initial developers of what later became commercially important products and services (Schreier & Prügl, 2008). Thus, it is stressed that companies should gain deeper understand- ing of the “voices of the consumers” in order to make their new product development success- ful. Consequently, consumer research can be a useful tool to obtain consumers’ voices and very helpful to raise the odds of success in the market (van Kleef, van Trijp, & Luning, 2005). In fact, it has been believed that consumer research could be conducted during any of the four stages of the new product develop- ment process: (a) opportunity identification, (b) development, (c) testing, and (d) launch (Suh, 1990; Urban and Hauser, 1993). However, there are the often-heard arguments that asking con- sumers what they want and getting the “right answer” from them in the early stage of the new product development is hard because their solutions are often vague and they do not know what they really want without any experience of something that does not really exist (Ulwick, 2002; von Hippel, 1986, 2005). Therefore, consumers’ voices are now most widely and intensely adopted in the stages of development, testing, and launch (van Kleef et al., 2005). In spite of increasing business literature on consumer research to gain their innova- tive insights in the new product development process, research about consumers’ impact on tourism products and services is still scant. Thus, the goal of this study is to examine the extent to which visitors as tourism product consumers and co-producers can provide their creative insights in the new product develop- ment process, especially in the launch stage. This study shows what can be understood from the observation of the spatiotemporal movement patterns of visitors, how visitors evaluated the new tourism product, and the kind of improve- ment aspects visitors can indicate. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Consumer-Driven Innovation Given recent industry dynamics, the impor- tance of new product development has been magnificently emphasized for its ability to gain competitiveness, growth, and survival of orga- nizations (Buxton, 2005; Byrd & Brown, 2002; Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1987; Leonard-Barton & Sinha, 1993). However, since new product development is proven to be a complex and dif- ficult task, thus easily plagued by high risks of failure (Carlile, 2002; Cooper & Kleinschmidt), many researchers have tried to identify the fac- tors resulting in success or failure of the new product development process. After realizing that the old, sequential approach to developing new products is not sufficient for the success of business; consumers, of all the factors reported, have gathered an extensive attention as one of the important role players in the new prod- uct development process (Cooper, 1979; Harari, 1994; Matthing, Sanden, & Edvardsson, 2004; Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986). Market managers are adopting market-driven strategies guided by the logic that all business strategy deci- sions should start with a clear understanding of consumers (Cravens, 2005). The underlying premise of market-driven strategy is that the consumers that form the market should be the starting point in business strategy formulation. In the era of mass production, the main role player in new product development was product and service providers (i.e., manufactures, com- panies, and organizations). They were obsessed with making a brand new thing, and the creation from the obsession of making something totally unique is called invention. According to Kotler (1989) and Kotha (1996), however, current mar- ket segmentation have progressed into the era of mass customization as the substitute for dead mass production as consumers are emerging to be the new main role player in the new product development process. When invention is fully customized and gets accepted by a market, it can Lee, Tussyadiah, and Zach 725 be reproduced into an innovation. It character- izes the contemporary era of mass customiza- tion, and has been considered a newly focused tool that effectively drives organizational suc- cess. Innovation is also heavily emphasized for its capability of providing competitive advan- tage for organizations. For example, Byrd and Brown (2002) describe innovation as an avenue that helps organizations grow and assert that the lack of innovation can stifle companies. Buxton (2005) also advises that organizations might bet- ter strive for innovation with a thorough under- standing of consumer needs and their creative insights rather than focusing on the invention of the “brand new.” Rothwell et al. (1974) emphasize the impor- tance of concentration on consumer needs for the success of innovation. They state that user needs must be precisely determined and met, and it is important that these needs are mon- itored throughout the course of the innova- tion since they very rarely remain completely static. Many successful firms achieve this deep and imaginative understanding of user needs through the interaction with a representative sample of potential consumers throughout the development. Cooper and Kleinschmidt (1987) also indicate detailed market research as one of the success factors for new product develop- ment: consumer studies to pin down the exact consumer needs, requirements, and benefits by using techniques such as focus groups and con- sumer surveys. Urban and von Hippel (1988) suggest an accurate market research to under- stand the exact consumer needs and emphasize that such understanding is clearly an essential input to the new product development process. Indeed, consumers have been shown to be the actual developers of most of the suc- cessful innovations and they also can con- tribute insights regarding solutions responsive to their needs (Urban & von Hippel, 1988). This explains why companies need to change themselves into market-oriented system in order to survive today’s fiercely competitive world. Therefore, from merely asking consumers what they want and need, innovation strategy has moved into involving them in the process as the actual role players, suggesting that innova- tion should be driven by consumers’ insights (De Marez & Verleye, 2004; van Kleef et al., 2005). According to Toffler (1981), with his popular concept of “prosumerism” (i.e., a mix of both producers and consumers), consumers are increasingly participating in the process of conception, design, launch, and promotion of new products and services. This process is often called Consumer-Driven Innovation (CDI, henceforth; Harris, 1998; Otsuka, 2006) and has been focused as the essential aspect for the suc- cess of business. CDI can be more effective and efficient for communication with consumers because organization strategy focuses on “by consumers” rather than “for consumers.” CDI mainly emphasizes on consumer involvement in the product development process while the cor- porate posture prior to CDI was just “to go out to consumers” (Overby, 2006). In the modern organization, CDI typically includes consumer interaction at the early stage of new prod- uct development and gains consumers’ feed- back soon after the product launch (Gruner & Homburg, 2000). The ability of organizations to collect and then effectively exploit consumer information about demand and preferences is becoming a key aspect of competitive advantage (Cox & Mowatt, 2004). Competitive advantage is also driven by constant innovation satisfying the quickly changing consumer fashions, trends, tastes, and patterns of demand (Mowatt, 2006). For example, the intensity of consumer interac- tion is found to be a positive impact on the inno- vative product development process for keeping them on top of market competition (Gruner & Homburg). Therefore, the roles that consumers play in the new product development process have been highly emphasized, especially in the recent market circumstances which emphasize the innovative ideas and products for the success of businesses (Dahlsten, 2003; Matthing et al., 2004). Consumer-Driven Innovation in Tourism Despite being a popular topic in business lit- erature, there is very little discussion on CDI in tourism development. However, CDI deserves more attention in the tourism setting than in others because the market is getting extremely competitive across the world and tourist demand 726 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING is rapidly changing due to the tremendous avail- ability of information. For a destination to meet the tourists’ quickly changing needs and wants and, therefore, to achieve the competitive advan- tage among others, the role of CDI through market-driven strategy in the tourism settings must be more explored than it has been. Within the field of tourism, being market-driven can be translated as focusing on visitors’ needs and wants and obtaining visitors feedback to con- tinuously provide valuable tourism experience. Particularly, as destinations are becoming more and more creative with the product offerings, it is of a paramount importance to understand the creative consumption of these new offerings and to gain visitors’ insights for a continuous co-creation of better products. As destination marketers face new chal- lenges from the rapid process of change in the field of tourism, developing new, innova- tive offerings can be an effective solution to create new markets and reinvent the old ones. In tourism literature, new product development is often discussed within the theme of cre- ativity. From their analysis on recent devel- opment in culture and tourism, Richards and Wilson (2006) use the terms “creative pro- duction,” referring to the innovative strategies of generating creative spaces within the des- tination; and “creative consumption,” referring to the new, different ways of experiencing tourism destinations. Tourists are increasingly more creative and informed; they base their travel styles on values such as personal authen- ticity, altruism, whole process learning, and self- actualization (Ray & Anderson, 2000). These new tourists are creative individuals who are willing not just to accumulate tourism expe- riences but also to change them. The blurred boundary between tourism production and con- sumption often cause creative tourists to be co-producers of their own experiences, making them a part of the innovative process of creating new tourism products. Thus, CDI is also consid- ered as an emerging chance to obtain and sustain a destination’s competitive advantage whereby destination marketing organizations (DMOs) try to develop a valuable and engaging relationship with the tourists by giving them a central role in the innovation process. Shaw, Agarwal, and Bull (2000) state that understanding tourism consumption and tourist experience is important to obtain their cre- ative consumption ideas, but these topics are somewhat neglected in tourism research because capturing the consumption and expe- rience of tourists is viewed as not an easy task. As such, tourism consumption and tourist experience have been operationally defined in many different ways. In an attempt to exam- ine tourist consumption and experience, some studies try to observe the actual movement patterns of tourists. Haldrup (2004) asserts that research about tourists’ spatiotemporal movement is scant, in part, because tourist movement is so fundamentally obvious that its form and practice are taken for granted and often overlooked. However, Lew and McKercher (2005) emphasize understanding tourists’ movements within a destination as the basic nature of their experience has impor- tant practical applications for destination man- agement, product development, and attraction marketing. Based on what is observed in their move- ments, researchers try to model tourists’ move- ment and consumption patterns and draw their implications for product development (Xia & Arrowsmith, 2005). Of the scant research deal- ing with tourists’ movements, some studies report tourists’ spatial implications of variations in attraction site visits (Debbage, 1991; Fennell, 1996; Tideswell & Faulkner, 1999). For exam- ple, Debbage found that some tourists chose to follow the advised travel courses for much of their stay even though they stayed at the des- tinations for several days, while a substantial group of tourists seemed to be very adventurous and more likely to make their own travel routes. From the results, she concluded that tourists’ travel behavior or pattern were heterogeneous. Other studies attempted to capture tourism con- sumption by interpreting tourist movement pat- terns (Cooper, 1981; Tussyadiah & Fesenmaier, 2007; Xia, Ciesielski, & Arrowsmith, 2005). From the spatiotemporal observation used in his study, Cooper concludes that the tourists are prone to reduce uncertainty in their explo- ration of an area by visiting sites that are per- ceived to give the greatest reward for their effort. Lee, Tussyadiah, and Zach 727 He also points out that the number and the timing of tourist visits to each site are depen- dent upon the level of facility provision at that site and, thus, upon the position of that site on the hierarchy. This confirms that, early in the travel, tourists tend to visit sites which are perceived to give high recreational place utility. The tourists’ strategies continually min- imize the risk of disappointment at the expense of effort. Based on the previous studies, it is argued that capturing tourists’ movements and descrip- tion of their experiences, including their com- ments and suggestions, can be considered as an effective approach to gain tourists’ feedback to assess a tour or other tourism programs, espe- cially in the process of new product develop- ment. Therefore, this study attempts to provide a discussion on the importance of CDI in tourism settings through a case study. It examines how visitors experience a newly launched tourism product and, particularly, to what extent they add their creativity as co-producers of their own tourism experience through the analysis of their spatiotemporal movements and creative sugges- tions. This study also conceptualizes the insights provided by visitors for redesigning various aspects of the tour program to draw manage- rial implications for future development of the product. RESEARCH CONTEXT This article focuses on Quilt Gardens TourSM, which is a new, innovative tourism product offered in Northern Indiana’s Amish Country. It launched in 2008 and engaged consumers (i.e., visitors in Quilt Gardens TourSM) in the process of product development by asking them to participate in the surveys to collect their opinions while experiencing the product right after the product launch. The tour features 12 quilt-themed gardens and 11 hand-painted out- door murals, some of which are located at the same visit points, making a total of 20 visit points. The unique gardens and murals are cre- ated based on patterns of traditional Amish and contemporary quilts, offering both visitors and residents to experience a colorful and creative connection to the history and heritage of Amish Country. The tour resulted from a partnership between Elkhart County Convention & Visitors Bureau (ECCVB) and local businesses and was designed to reinforce an existing product called Heritage TrailSM, a 90-mile trail connecting his- toric and scenic parts of Amish Country. The Quilt Gardens blossom from late May 2008 until first frost of 2008, making this the time period for the tour. The tour comes with a marketer-suggested itinerary following the Heritage TrailSM. As an attempt to make the visitors follow the tour, ECCVB provides an official tour map of the gar- dens and murals based on their order along the trail (see Figure 1). Self-guiding Quilt Gardens TourSM CDs and cassette tapes are also provided to accompany visitors throughout the tour. The maps, CDs, and cassette tapes can be obtained from the Elkhart Country Visitor Center Mural (visit point No. 1) or other 19 stops along the trail. STUDY METHOD This article focuses on consumers’ feed- back for a new product at the introduction stage of product life cycle, using two differ- ent approaches of data collection: diaries and online survey. In order to fully understand how visitors experience the Quilt Gardens TourSM, visitors were invited to participate in the study by filling out “Quilt Gardens TourSM Diary” as the first survey instrument during their trip. It was designed to accomplish two important goals: tracking visitors’ spatiotemporal move- ments and soliciting problem-solving design suggestions. The measures and scales for the diary were developed based on previous stud- ies focusing on visitor movements and expe- riences (see Tussyadiah & Fesenmaier, 2007; Tussyadiah, Fesenmaier, & Yoo, 2008). To cap- ture the detailed information on various aspects of the visitor experience including the sequence of movement, the diary was designed to include three sections. Part 1 asks visitors to identify and evalu- ate at least 10 gardens/murals according to the sequence of their visitations, consisting of 728 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING FIGURE 1. Quilt Gardens TourSM Map. 1 Visitors Center Mural 2 Ruthmere Museum 3 Time Was Museum 4 Downtown Elkhart Commons 5 Linton’s Enchanted Gardens 6 Elkhart Historical Museum 7 Krider Gardens 8 Varns & Hoover Mural 9 Das Dutchman Essenhaus 10 Menno-Hof Garden 11 Old Bag FactoryMural 12 Old Bag FactoryGarden 13 EC 4-H Fairgrounds 14 Goshen College Mural 15 McCormick Creek 16 Downtown Nappanee 17 Amish Acres 18 Downtown Wakarusa 19 Key Bank Mural 20 American Farmers Market Quilt Mural Heritage Trail Route Quilt Garden 10 pages for each location. It starts with the name of gardens/murals and the time of their arrival, followed by the reason(s) of visiting the gardens and/or murals, their sensory expe- riences (i.e., color, sight, sound, smell, tex- ture, and taste) and emotional experiences (e.g., happy, sad, afraid, and calm) with the gardens and/or murals (in a 7-point Likert scale rang- ing from 1 for strongly disagree to 7 for strongly agree), and ended with duration of stay at each specific location. This information was used to describe visitors’ spatiotemporal movements within the tour and to evaluate each individual garden/mural. In Part 2, visitors were asked to list the three most and least interesting gardens/murals and the reasons for these selections. Part 2 also includes the future intention to participate in various activities related to the tour experience, consisting of seven measures with a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 for strongly dis- agree to 7 for strongly agree. This information was used to evaluate the entire concept of the tour, to improve the quality of the individual venues within the tour, and to inquire of vis- itors’ involvement intention. The information from Part 3 was used to understand the market of this tour. The second approach of data collection was an online survey. It was targeted for tourists who already finished their trips and was designed to capture more general data on evaluations and suggestions on the overall tour (i.e., the visited gardens/murals, the three most and least inter- esting gardens/murals, the gardens/murals to visit or revisit in the future, and possible future engagement with the tour). Both diaries and online survey were con- ducted from June to October 2008. Participants were solicited by ECCVB through their website and by direct solicitation at the Visitor Center and point of interests throughout the area. The diary survey resulted in 230 completed diaries with a total of 1584 garden/mural visitations while the online survey resulted in 43 completed responses representing 519 garden/mural visi- tations. All participants entered into a drawing to win a $250 gift card, a $100 gift card, or one of six $25 gift cards. In addition, partic- ipants who visited at least 10 gardens/murals and returned the completed diary received a free gift at the designated drop-off locations. The analysis was conducted using geo-visualization of tourist spatiotemporal mobility, descriptive statistics, and qualitative analysis of visitors’ descriptions. Lee, Tussyadiah, and Zach 729 RESULTS Spatial Sequences Visitors’ movements throughout the tour were first mapped by the noted connections between the respective gardens. The results show various “subtours” created by the visi- tors. Only 22.7% of the visitors chose Visitor Center Mural (visit point No. 1) as the first point to start the tour; other visitors started at the first gardens they found upon entering the area. Visitors who started the tour with Visitor Center Mural stated that it was because of these reasons: “It was the first mural found upon entering the area” (58.3%), “it was the closest to the accommodation” (19.4%), “it was recom- mended by others” (5.6%), and other reasons (16.7%), including “wanted to start the tour with getting the information from the Visitor Center,” and “the starting point of the Heritage TrailSM.” Interestingly, only a few of the visitors fol- lowed the trail as advertised/promoted in the brochures (29%). Most visitors (71%) created their own itineraries. As presented in Figure 2, Barbara, who started her travel at the Visitor Center Mural as suggested, was following the Heritage TrailSM until the fourth garden. However, she chose visit point No. 20 as her next stop, toured the suggested route backward, and finally finished her tour at visit point No. 7. The routes she used when traveling to visit points No. 20 and No. 7, which are illustrated with dotted arrows in Figure 2, were not even on the Heritage TrailSM. The reason she stated for taking the different paths was “closeness to route taken”. In another case, Darla started the tour at visit point No. 12 and moved along different routes, which are also illustrated with dotted arrows, until she reached a part of the trail on the fifth stop. She finished her tour mov- ing along the advised routes backward. Other specific reasons mentioned by the visitors who created their own routes instead of the suggested one are “[we] saw it as we drove by,” “[it’s] close to lodging,” and “[it’s convenience for] lunch time and shopping.” It appears that visitors’ movements from one garden/mural to another were driven mainly by “convenience, close proximity to the previous gardens/murals” (67.4%). Other rea- sons (25.5%) included “following the trail/tour map,” “following the cassette tape/CD,” “close to other attractions to visit,” and “saw it while driving by.” Only a few visitors stated that the reasons to visit a particular garden/mural after the previous ones are because “it was recom- mended at the previous garden/mural” (3.5%), “it has similar plants as the previous garden” (2.4%), “it has similar design patterns as the previous garden/mural” (1.2%). These reasons indicate that while the movements of a few visitors were driven by the marketer’s instruc- tional material (e.g., map, trail, CD), most of the visitors moved along the area according to their perceived convenience and the proximity between a garden/mural and the others (see Figure 3). They, in the results, also suggest that market-advised routes are still perceived incon- venient or less convenient by the visitors to the destination. Temporal Sequences Figure 4 represents the temporal sequences of visitations. Most respondents started the tour in the morning before 12:00 p.m. (74% of the first stops and 58% of the second stops). However, from the 3rd to the 10th stops, most of the vis- its occurred after 12:00 p.m. (about 66%). Also, most of the overall gardens/murals visitations (55%) happened in the afternoon between 12:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., from short before noon until short before dusk. Only a few recorded visits actually happened after 5:00 p.m. (10%). This is due to the nature of the attractions; the color- ful gardens and murals are best viewed with a sufficient amount of light. Most visitors toured the quilt gardens/murals for 1 day (74%) or 2 days (18%). The shortest visit for a 1-day tour was for 1.5 hours spent in 10 gardens/murals; the visitor was only driving by to see the quilt murals and spent 5 to 10 min- utes at the quilt gardens. The longest 1-day tour was for 10.5 hours, spent in 10 gardens/murals; the visitor spent from 5 to 15 minutes at the quilt murals and 10 to 30 minutes at the quilt gardens. Visitors stayed at each garden/mural from 1 (i.e., just driving through) to 210 minutes 730 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING FIGURE 2. Marketer Suggested Tour and Examples of Generic Visitors’ Tours. FIGURE 3. Reasons of Visit From One Garden/Mural to Another. (3.5 hours); with an average length of stay of 20.4 minutes. Visitor Evaluations and Involvement The participants were asked to evaluate each of the gardens and murals and the tour in gen- eral. Table 1 shows the evaluation scores for respective gardens and murals collected from the visitors. The scores range from 1 for strongly disagree to 7 for strongly agree. From the results, one can see that most of the visit points have similar scores on each evaluation category except three visit points: (a) Varns & Hoover Mural (visit point No. 8) has lowest scores on “crowded,” “noisy,” and “nice atmosphere”; (b) Goshen College Mural (visit point No. 14) has lowest scores on “easy to find,” “attrac- tive,” “visually pleasing,” and “worth to time spent”; and (c) Das Dutchman Essenhaus (visit Lee, Tussyadiah, and Zach 731 FIGURE 4. Aggregate Temporal Sequences of Visitations (in Number of Visits). TABLE 1. Evaluation Scores for Each Garden and Mural (With 1 for Strongly Disagree and 7 for Strongly Agree) Point Name of Easy to Visually Worth the Nice number garden/mural find Attractive pleasing Crowded Noisy time spent atmosphere 1 Visitors Center Mural 5.8 6.2 6.1 1.5 1.8 5.7 5.7 2 Ruthmere Museum 5.8 5.9 5.8 1.3 2.6 5.5 5.6 3 Time Was Museum 5.8 5.7 5.6 1.6 2.8 5.2 4.4 4 Mowntown Elkhart Commons 5.5 6.0 6.0 1.2 2.1 5.8 6.2 5 Linton’s Enchanted Gardens 4.9 5.8 5.8 1.4 1.5 5.6 6.0 6 Elkhart Historical Museum 5.9 5.7 5.9 1.5 1.8 5.1 5.2 7 Krider Gardens 5.2 5.7 5.6 2.1 1.7 5.8 6.4 8 Varns & Hoover Mural 5.8 5.5 5.9 2.6 3.5 4.7 4.0 9 Das Dutchman Essenhaus 5.8 6.8 6.7 2.3 2.0 6.3 6.5 10 Menno-Hof Garden 6.0 6.3 6.2 1.9 1.9 5.9 6.2 11 Old Bag Factory Mural 6.2 6.0 5.9 1.8 1.9 5.1 5.0 12 Old Bag Factory Garden 5.7 6.7 6.7 1.9 1.6 6.4 6.3 13 EC 4-H Fairgrounds 4.9 6.3 6.3 1.7 2.4 5.7 5.6 14 Goshen College Mural 4.4 5.0 4.7 1.9 1.9 4.4 4.4 15 McCormick Creek 5.0 6.3 6.2 2.1 2.0 5.6 5.6 16 Downtown Nappanee 4.5 5.6 5.6 2.3 2.8 5.0 4.4 17 Amish Acres 5.9 5.6 5.5 1.7 1.6 5.7 5.7 18 Downtown Wakarusa 5.4 6.3 6.5 1.7 1.8 6.1 6.0 19 Key Bank Mural 5.3 6.3 6.1 1.9 2.2 5.9 5.5 20 American Farmers Market 6.7 6.6 6.4 2.2 1.8 6.1 6.1 Overall value 5.5 6.0 6.0 1.8 2.1 5.6 5.5 point No. 9) has highest scores on “attractive,” “visually pleasing,” and “nice atmosphere.” It indicates that even though most of visit points are estimated equally by visitors, some of them have extremely high and low scores on partic- ular evaluation categories as compared to the others. Also, the results show that their overall values on each evaluation category are mod- erately well-estimated (above 5.5 on positive aspects and below 2.5 on negative aspects). As a part of the evaluation process, visitors were asked to provide descriptions and comments 732 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING about their experience with the tour. The com- ments collected from visitors provide thoughtful insights about their experiences, the gaps between their expectation and the provided tour, and rec- ommendations for solutions to their perceived problems. Visitors were also asked to vote for their most and least interesting gardens/murals and state the reasons for their votes. Based on the comments and votes, important aspects of the gardens and murals perceived by visitors as drivers of positive experience were identified; they are: design patterns, choice of plants and flowers, location (i.e., flat vs. ele- vated), visibility, and maintenance. Some of the gardens/murals voted as the least interesting garden were identified as having bland or boring design, too repetitive in design, sparse flowers, having muted color, not well maintained, etc. Interestingly, it appears many visitors enjoyed the gardens more than the murals. Overall, most visitors enjoyed the tour and considered the new product as a wonderful idea and that ECCVB should do it again next year. Nearly all visitors stated that they have gardens/murals they would like to visit/revisit this season or in a more distant future. Indeed, most visitors indicated that they agree to visit more gardens/murals in the future (average rate of 5.06, with 1 for strongly disagree and 7 for strongly agree) and also stated that they would like to recommend the tour to their friends and relatives (average rate of 5.98). Most impor- tantly, there are a number of visitors who stated that they agreed to participate in planting the future quilt gardens, attend seminars in quilting and gardening, and participate in a quilt gardens and murals photo contest organized by ECCVB. These results show that visitors are more than willing to engage in the process of the tour development by active participation in various activities related to this tour. Visitors’ Ideas for Product Design Besides the positive aspects of the tour, this study also found some problems faced by tourists as they experienced the attractions. The problems identified by tourists are cate- gorized into two groups: (a) attraction-related problems for each gardens and murals and (b) general problems for the overall tour product. Respondents suggested the development solu- tions for each of the venues and for the overall tour setting. The problems and solutions for gardens and murals include: 1. Visibility problem. Visitors identified some difficulties enjoying the entire design pat- tern of a few gardens and capturing them in pictures, especially when the gardens are planted in relatively flat areas. Visitors suggested the following solutions for this problem: – creating elevated platforms at each gar- den to allow visitors to view the full pattern and take pictures of the garden; – creating a pole with a large mirror to enable visitors to view the garden from a designated spot, as if from above; – planting gardens on the hill; – preparing only low growing plants for better viewing. 2. Information and interpretation. Some vis- itors wanted more background informa- tion and interpretation of all garden and mural designs to better understand the sig- nificance of the tour. They suggested the following solutions: – providing signs and descriptions accompanied by aerial pictures of every garden; – setting storytelling or interpretation boards for each quilt garden/mural design for easy understanding and more meaningful experience. 3. Design problems. A few issues surround- ing the design of quilt gardens and murals were identified and several solutions were suggested as follows: – choosing plant colors that are not too distracting; – selecting color combinations of flow- ers that can distinguish the quilt pattern better; – preparing a variety of flowers or plants that display the same color. Additionally, besides the comments about the gardens and murals itself, there were other important aspects of the tour highlighted by Lee, Tussyadiah, and Zach 733 visitors. Some directional signs were identified as causing confusion because they gave visi- tors a wrong direction. More problematically, while the overall evaluation of the tour guide CD/cassette were described as very informa- tive, well-done, and interesting; there were also some negative comments about them, such as “confusing,” “not necessarily helpful,” or even “leading away from the tour.” These problems are considered to be urgent matters for the development of the tour in the following year. CONCLUSION New product development has been empha- sized as one of the vital factors for the suc- cess and prosperity of organizations. From the market-driven strategies that all business should start with a clear understanding of consumers (Cravens, 2005), involving the consumer as an important role player in new product develop- ment has been believed to be an efficient way to achieve a business success in the highly com- petitive market. Within the field of tourism, since being market-driven can be interpreted as focusing on visitors’ needs and wants and obtaining their feedback to continuously pro- vide valuable tourism experience, this study examined to what extent visitors can be success- fully involved in the new product development process using a case study of Quilt Gardens TourSM. This study is based on the logic that CDI should include consumer interaction at the early stage of new product development and obtain consumers’ feedback soon after the prod- uct launch (Gruner & Homburg, 2000). As Xia and Arrowsmith (2005) state, modeling tourists’ movement and consumption patterns through this study is found to be useful to draw the impli- cations for product development. The results also suggest that visitors, as the actual role players in innovation processes, have the poten- tial to be co-producers of tourism products by providing their own creative insights for the products (De Marez & Verleye, 2004; van Kleef et al., 2005). As Richards and Wilson (2006) assert, this study illustrates how successful an invention (i.e., newly launched tourism product Quilt Gardens TourSM) can be elaborated and reproduced into an innovation (i.e., a “creative production”) when it is fully customized with consumers’ creative insights (i.e., the “creative consumption”). By observing their spatial and temporal sequences of visitors’ movements as one aspect of their experience, it is shown that the move- ment pattern can better indicate the actual expe- rience regardless of tourism planners’ suggested itinerary or program. These movements are generic; yet, by doing so, tourists assemble var- ious versions of products customized to their needs and preferences. This can also be seen as an attempt at reducing uncertainty in their movements of an area by visiting sites per- ceived to reward the greatest benefit for their effort (Cooper, 1981). These versions are valu- able insights for planners to improve the tourism offerings in the future. As a key person who actually experiences and enjoys the destination, a tourist could go beyond “just being a tourist” and provide suggestions that product planners were not able to come up with prior to the prod- uct launch. In addition, these findings demon- strate that, because of the inseparable nature of consumption and production of tourism prod- ucts, the process of soliciting consumer feed- back is comparable to a real-time integration of demand and supply, and therefore is a very use- ful approach for product design within a tourism setting. From the analyses, a series of suggestions for the improvement of the Quilt Gardens TourSM were provided. Some important design elements which should be considered in further devel- opment of this program are as the following. First, it is important to add more visibility to the quilt gardens so that visitors can enjoy the gardens more by capturing the entire quilt pat- terns. Second, the coverage of plants and flowers (i.e., not too sparse and not too crowded) is also an important factor that can aid to the attractive- ness of the quilt gardens. Third, visitors tend to prefer a good-sized mural with unique design patterns. Fourth, quilt gardens/murals manage- ment should put a greater importance on the maintenance of the gardens/murals. Well-kept and cared gardens and murals are perceived to be more attractive by visitors. Last, the pro- vision of directional and informational aides will provide visitors with a more valuable and meaningful experience with the tour. 734 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING The two different approaches of data collec- tion were also effective for the purpose of this study. By using tour diaries, researchers could obtain visitors’ opinions and ideas while they were on-site enjoying the tour. Through tracking visitors’ movements, existing problems related with the itineraries and materials provided by product planners to guide visitors within the destination were identified. Also, the online sur- vey was proven effective to gain visitors’ overall evaluation after experiencing the tour, targeting those who did not have a chance to participate in the diary survey. This study provides meaningful implications stemming from the identification of visitors as co-producers of the tourism experience. While Information Technology (e.g., online survey) has gathered attention from researchers as a genuine innovative communication tool with consumers for their interactive nature (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2006), the failure to collect a large number of online survey responses is one of the limitations of this study. Additionally, due to the attributes of the diaries, the visi- tors were asked to write them simultaneously while they were moving around; the move- ment patterns were not fully completed in some of the diaries. High-technical digital equip- ment to understand tourists’ experience within the destination (e.g., by automatically tracking their movements, recording their narratives) has been used more commonly these days, espe- cially when observing tourists’ spatiotemporal experiences (O’Connor, Zerger, & Itami, 2005; Tussyadiah et al., 2008). Thus, the application of high-technical devices is expected to enhance the accuracy of the observation results for fur- ther future research. 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