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A System for Game-Based Smart Tourism
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In this paper, we discuss the gamification strategies and methodologies used by TRIPMENTOR—a game-oriented cultural tourism application in the region of Attica. Its primary purpose is to provide visitors with rich media content via the web and mobile environments by redirecting travellers, highlighting points of interest, and providing information for tour operators. Gamification is a critical component of the project; it relates users to specific sites and activities, improves their visiting experiences, and encourages a constant interaction with the application through a playful experience. In TRIPMENTOR, gamification serves both as a tourism marketing strategy and as a tool for encouraging users to share their experiences while exploring Attica in a way designed to meet their personal needs, interests, and habits. This paper aims to describe and analyse the gamification mechanisms applied, following the Octalysis framework, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of gamification as a tourist marketing strategy.
Sustainability studies in tourism are increasingly emphasizing social matters, for instance, “Accessible Tourism for All.” Research on people with visual impairments with smart tourism has so far been sparse. In order to resonate with the global call for sustainable tourism development, this paper aims to contribute to understanding the aspirations of people with visual impairments in terms of tourism and to explore how smart tourism destinations could potentially enhance the tourism experience they offer. We utilized multisensory participant observations and interviews to empathize with the target users and gain insights into their needs. The results showed that they were generally positive about travel, particularly autonomy, achievement needs, and socializing with other individuals. The findings also shed light on their desire to play games on their phones. Consequently, based on the findings and the theoretical groundings of PERMA model and MDA framework from positive psychology and game design, the study proposed a gamified approach to future tourism app design for people with visual impairments, which could enhance engagement, motivation, and enjoyment in the tourism experience.
E-Tourism is an objective reality. Its dynamics and fast-accelerating development cause significant change to the traditional model of the classical tourism system. Th e creation of an e-tourism system is a logical sequence of the digitalization of all processes in the value chain of the travel and tourism industry. Th e purpose of the article is, based on analysis of the factors and conditions of emergence and
development of e-tourism, to construct and perform a conceptual framework of an e-tourism system. Specialized sources of secondary data have been studied and conceptual basis of the theoretical framework has been defined. E-tourism is identified as a process and key characteristics of its nature have been performed. Th e following research methods and scientific approach have been applied: theoretical exploratory approach; systematic and chronological approach; systematic screening of academic publications; analysis and synthesis; content analysis. Th e result of the scientific research is construction of a conceptual (theoretical) framework of the e-tourism system, introducing basic groups (subsystems) and integrated components and identifying the specific interactions between them.
Nowadays, tourism sector needs to adapt to a very fast changing environment and stronger competitiveness. Smart tourism describes the current stage of tourism development influenced by the evolution of information technologies and is becoming a promising way how to face the new market conditions. The aim of the paper is to review the conceptual foundations of smart tourism and to analyse the development of smart tourism initiative in Central Europe, specifically in Slovakia. The paper adopts an exploratory multiple case study methodology, focusing on information technologies used by Central European tourists, willingness of data sharing and the use of the state-of-the-art technologies in tourism businesses. Moreover, the smart concept is examined based on the (SA) ⁶ framework in three tourism destinations. The paper concludes that smart tourism should not be the ultimate goal, but with the help of technology, innovation, and cooperation, it should bring better tourist experience, wellbeing of residents, enhance effectiveness and competitiveness of businesses and destinations, and lead to overall competitive sustainability.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework based on an understanding of the principles of popular mobile-enabled games, indicating how organisations in the tourism sector could meet the needs of Millennials and Generation Z through engaging with the existing gamified location-based practice of geocaching as an information and communication technology enabled gamified enhancement to the destination experience.
Design/methodology/approach
As a primarily conceptual paper, the authors take an inductive qualitative approach to theory building based on the understanding of an existing practice (geocaching) that is undertaken among a community of practitioners (geocachers), which results in the presentation of a conceptual framework, which is the theory itself that the authors have constructed from the understanding of what is going on and which principles can then be applied across other tourism practices.
Findings
Findings indicate that through engaging with geocaching, smaller entrepreneurial businesses even in non-urban destinations that fall outside of the remit of smart city developments, and in tourism destinations on the less technologically enabled or resource-rich side of the digital divide, can reap the benefits associated with employing the principles and practices associated with smart tourism to meet the needs of this new generation of tourism consumers who seek richer digital and often gamified tourism experiences.
Originality/value
This paper fills a gap in the literature regarding the way many different types of tourism destinations could meet the needs of Millennials and Generation Z tourists.
Considering that the core concerns in sustainability are threats to the survival of humankind and the ecosystems that humans depend on, changing the consumption and production behaviors of individuals and society is inevitable. However, people are reluctant to change their own behavior in support of sustainability goals. This tendency seems to be especially strong in tourism because the main value of tourism is hedonic utility. Thus, the tourism industry is now introducing gamification and smart tourism to shift tourist behavior toward sustainability, but most of studies and practices only focus on the performance and application of gamification without considering customer adoption patterns and perceptions during the process. This study empirically investigated what factors affect the adoption of smart tourism applications that incorporate game elements, using the Google Maps tourist guide program. As an initial approach, we incorporated diverse theoretical approaches: perceived usefulness; perceived ease of use; perceived enjoyment from technology acceptance model; information and interaction motivations from the uses and gratifications theory; the network effect; distributive justice; flow as responses to the game characteristics of smart tourism applications; and information privacy concerns as a negative factor for diffusion. The result showed that hedonic characteristics of the gamified smart tourism application (GSTA) are strong in adoption. Perceived enjoyment had a significant influence on the intention to use, but information quality, related to cognitive experience, did not. The flow and perceived distributive justice associated with the game content were not significant, but the interaction motivation was significant in the research model. The results of this study show that individuals regard a GSTA as a low-level game tool. Also, it is important to preoccupy the smart tourism application market in terms of marketing strategy because the network effect is relevant to both perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. We also found that the need to provide personal information would negatively affect the adoption of a gamified smart tourism application.
Contents + List of Contributors
This book examines the concepts of open innovation, crowdsourcing and co-creation from a holistic point of view and analyzes them considering their suitability to the tourism industry. Methods, theories and models are discussed and examined regarding their practical applicability in tourism. The book illustrates the theoretical mechanisms and principles of Open Innovation, Crowdsourcing and Co-creation with case studies and best practices examples. In addition to the scientific target group, the book is a useful resource for managers of the entire tourism industry.
First, the book presents the theoretical fundamentals and concepts in 11 specific chapters. This basis is then enriched by three parts with case studies, focusing on information, creation and provision respectively. Finally in a concluding part the editors sum up the book and give an outlook on the implications, learnings and future perspectives of open innovation, crowdsourcing and collaborative consumption in the tourism industry.
Open Tourism stands for the evolving transformations of traditional business models within the tourism industry. The new possibilities result in an opening of traditional structures, such as the integration of external sources into corporate processes as well as the provision of touristic services between individuals in peer-to-peer networks. It is therefore astonishing that there is no publication that offers us a comprehensive classification system covering these occurrences, given the multitude of examples that are continually emerging in the tourism industry. These transformations can be seen as dynamically enriching the tourism industry on the one hand, but also as jeopardizing on the other. This introduction depicts the challenges for the tourism industry, followed by a closer look at the most popular opening-movements: Open Innovation, Crowdsourcing and Co-Creation. In the final section, the authors present the Contribution-Utilization-Matrix, a framework developed for the purpose of classifying all the different variations of Open Innovation, Crowdsourcing and Co-creation. Due to its relevance, applicability and all-encompassing nature, the Contribution-Utilization-Matrix is the premise behind the structural logic of the book.
This paper defines smart tourism as tourism supported by integrated efforts at a destination to find innovative ways to collect and aggregate/harness data derived from physical infrastructure, social connections, government/organizational sources and human bodies/minds in combination with the use of advanced technologies to transform that data into enhanced experiences and business value-propositions with a clear focus on efficiency, sustainability and enriched experiences during the trip. It delineates smart tourism from general e-tourism and describes the experience smart tourists are expected to have at smart destinations. The paper then discusses a series of challenges currently neglected in the practical smart tourism agendas and the academic literature.
Gamification, as a new topic, is a future trend which can be applied in tourism in many ways to elicit motivation and behaviour change. This paper is a conceptual work on gamification in tourism discussing the concept on how game design elements and game thinking can be applied in a tourism context. Based on that, it defines tourism gamification and identifies intrinsic and extrinsic motivation elements that can be used in gamification in order to influence consumer engagement, customer loyalty, brand awareness, and user experience in tourism areas. Best practice examples show where this innovative concept of gamification is already applied in tourism. The paper also outlines limitations of gamification and makes suggestions for future research.
Smart tourism is a new buzzword applied to describe the increasing reliance of tourism destinations, their industries and their tourists on emerging forms of ICT that allow for massive amounts of data to be transformed into value propositions. However, it remains ill-defined as a concept , which hinders its theoretical development. The paper defines smart tourism, sheds light on current smart tourism trends, and then lays out its technological and business foundations. This is followed by a brief discussion on the prospects and drawbacks of smart tourism. The paper further draws attention to the great need for research to inform smart tourism development and management.
During recent years “gamification” has gained significant attention among practitioners and game scholars. However, the current understanding of gamification has been solely based on the act of adding systemic game elements into services. In this paper, we propose a new definition for gamification, which emphases the experiential nature of games and gamification, instead of the systemic understanding. Furthermore, we tie this definition to theory from service marketing because majority of gamification implementations aim towards goals of marketing, which brings to the discussion the notion of how customer / user is always ultimately the creator of value. Since now, the main venue for academic discussion on gamification has mainly been the HCI community. We find it relevant both for industry practitioners as well as for academics to study how gamification can fit in the body of knowledge of existing service literature because the goals and the means of gamification and marketing have a significant overlap.
In this final chapter we conclude the book by arguing that big data analytics in inherently connected with the recent emergence of tourism design and smart destinations, which is a logical result of the advancements of IT and its wide adoption in both consumer market and the industry over the last 20 years. And while big data analytics serves as a new toolbox for smart tourism development, the general framework of Design Science in Tourism (DST) provides the foundation for us to design and implement smart places/destinations. We further conclude that big data analytics not only enables us to better understand the consumer market, but also propels collaboration, open innovation and value co-creation in the tourism industry.
Gamification in tourism. In: Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism
- D Buhalis
- F Xu
- J Weber
eTourism: Information Technology for Strategic Tourism Management
- D Buhalis