How tour guides shape value co-creation for sustainability in guided tourism: a contagion perspective on climate and trait cynicism

Drawing on social contagion theory, this study conceptualizes value co-creation in group tours as a situational and episodic contagion process, operating in socially intensive yet temporally bounded contexts with limited normative stabilization. Across four complementary studies, including a field experiment and three scenario-based experiments, results show that tour guides’ value co-creation behaviors significantly enhance tourists’ value co-creation behavioral intentions. This effect is mediated by tourists’ perceptions of a value co-creation climate, defined as a transient, interaction-based construct reflecting rapidly formed shared perceptions within a specific tour experience rather than a stable organizational climate. The perceived climate significantly strengthens tourists’ participation behavioral intentions but does not significantly affect their citizenship behavioral intentions. In addition, trait cynicism negatively moderates the effects of tour guides’ value co-creation behaviors on both perceived climate and tourists’ value co-creation behavioral intentions. By demonstrating how contagion operates differently in short-term, experience-based tourism contexts, this study refines social contagion theory in guided tourism. Importantly, the findings suggest that tour guides function as critical leverage points for stimulating tourists’ value co-creation behavioral intentions and perceptions of a value co-creation climate, offering actionable implications for guide training and destination management aimed at fostering sustainable tourism outcomes.