Gamification in tourism industry
Gen-Z is very different from our generation. Seeing a picture of a scene was enough for our generation to enjoy, but the new generation seeks to interact with that scene, So, the conditions of the new generation require us to talk to them in the language of games. In the tourism industry, this issue is also very important.
WTM (2011) predicts gamification as a popular trend for tourism. Sigala (2015b p202) verifies these functions by conducting a questionnaire survey with Trip Adviser users, demonstrating how gamification can enhance tourists’ travel experiences by “getting tourists immersed into a simulated travel world”.
Location-based game is one of the best example of this approach. It can bring history alive and create playful interactions between the visitor and the tourist destination. Visitors can walk through a location interactively with location-based games. Tourists might walk with historical characters through the place, discover the sounds of them when they have a famous meeting talking about the important subject. With Augmented Reality, players can interact with virtual game characters and game elements in real time. Another good example of such immersing is the location-based AR game Pokémon Go. In the first week following Pokémon Go’s launch in July 2016, 65 million users engaged with the game (Serino et al., 2016). By October 2016, there were around 15.4 million active users per week (Pokémon Go Hub, 2016).
