Analyzing Big Data through the lens of customer knowledge management: Evidence from a set of regional tourism experiences

This paper aims to demonstrate how customer knowledge management (CKM) can opportunely support the process of value creation from Big Data. Focusing on tourism as a knowledge-intensive industry, the paper tries to contribute to the debate on management of Big Data by proposing CKM as a meaningful approach for transforming the huge amount of data available on social networks into valuable assets for competitiveness of tourism destinations.

The paper adopts a qualitative research methodology based on multiple exploratory case studies identified in a set of digital local events related to the Apulia destination (southern Italy).

Research findings demonstrate that the three dimensions of CKM (knowledge for, from and about customers) could be adopted as lens for analyzing the huge amount of data created for, from and about tourist experiences and for transforming them into valuable assets supporting the competitiveness of tourism destinations.

Limitations are related to the industry and the regional dimension of the sample. Accordingly, more research is necessary to prove the validity of the approach and to assure its larger replicability.

Implications for the agenda of organizations and destinations’ makers for designing and implementing knowledge-based services and products arise.

Elements of originality reside into the adoption of CKM as framework to analyze Big Data in the tourism industry.