A Process for Co-Creating Shared Value with the Crowd: Tourism Case Studies from a Regional Innovation System in Western Switzerland

Tourism generates almost 11% of the gross value added of the canton of Valais, Switzerland, and almost 20% of the workplaces of the region in 2014. However, the tourism economy in the region of Valais faces a series of challenges such as aging infrastructure, the emergence of new competing tourism destinations, changes in customer behaviour and in the legal framework, and the high value of the Swiss franc. In 2014, the region welcomed almost 22 million visitors, who spent around 3.4 million Swiss francs; but this represents a decline of 4 million visitors from the level seen in 2000 (OVT, 2016). Hence, the tourism economy must now assert itself in a highly competitive international market. The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from Valais must therefore find innovative development approaches and new ideas that will be useful to not only tourism businesses and clients, but the local population as well. Despite the presence of universities of applied sciences, a SWOT analysis of the French speaking part of Switzerland (Western Switzerland) realized by the Conference of the Heads of Department of Public Economy in the field of innovation policies for the period 2012–2015, revealed gaps in SMEs’ cooperation with schools and research institutes, as well as in the innovation process of the region's firms. The analysis concluded that, despite the improvement of coaching services and technology accessibility through the regional innovation system, the innovation intensity declined in the region (CDEPSO, 2015). Hence, the current interregional program aims to improve and to foster synergies and the convergence of actual innovation services. This program, promoting a regional innovation system that is able to reinforce the relations between firms, scientists, and institutions, aims to finance and to initiate accompanying innovative projects using sectorial (e.g., ICT, cleantech) and thematic approaches with the Innotour Despite the presence of a regional innovation system, the gross value added attributed to tourism in the Swiss region of Valais is declining. Innovation policies fostering private initiatives and collaboration between companies, researchers, and coaching services have been reinforced recently, and policy instruments are in place to support strategic industries. However, no incitement instrument is dedicated to supporting the co-creation and the creation of shared value through local actors. This article presents a co-creation process of shared value and the lessons learned while implementing a new mode of innovation and entrepreneurship in two case studies in the peripheral region of Valais, Switzerland. The aim of the process is the co-creation of shared value-based business models, with an emphasis on the use of crowdsourcing to find new ways to create shared value. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.