Tourists as commodities in below-cost tours

Shengrong Chen and Jiarui Zhu

Annals of Tourism Research, 2025, vol. 110, issue C

Abstract: This paper focuses on the commodification of tourists in below-cost tours. With the audience commodity theory from the field of political economy of communication as the analytical framework, we reveal the process of tourists' prosumption. In below-cost tours, the relationship between tourists and travel agencies is collaborative coproduction: Travel agencies obtain profits through tourists' prosumption (primarily visiting and shopping) in designated stores. Tourists thereby become a type of commodity that enables capital to obtain exchange value – tourists as commodities. This study advances the explanatory research on below-cost tours, enriches the literature on prosumption by extending it to tourism research, and demonstrates the spread of commodification in social life through empirical studies.

Keywords: Prosumption; Tourist commodity; Travel agencies; Audience commodity theory; Below-cost tours (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:anture:v:110:y:2025:i:c:s0160738324001671

DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2024.103890

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