Gamifying a destination means adding game/challenge components to a tourism experience so that the tourist has fun visiting new places and doing different activities. For example, hiding a clue in a place to make visitors look around more carefully and see details is a way of gamifying their experience.

There might exist as many ways of gamifying a visitor’s experience as there are existing destinations! The level of gamification that can be chosen depends on what or who is the target.

What are the benefits of gamification for the tourism sector?

Professionally developed applying a tailor-made destination approach gamification can bring the following benefits to the tourism sector:

Promotion 

It directs tourists toward virtuous behaviour, such as visiting less frequented places, through the use of missions and badges.

 

Learning 

It encourages an entertaining reflection on what was seen, through interactive questionnaires, quiz, leader boards and prizes

 

Social Reputation 

It allows to gain new visitors through social interactions, which let them tag their friends and share what they have seen.

 

Loyalty 

When visitors are satisfied with the experience they had, is much more likely they will come back.
 

How to gamify a destination?

Every destination struggles with the idea of conveying an authentic, complete, interesting yet comprehensible image of itself. Sometimes the tourism offer appears as too diversified, sometimes the lack of resources prevents the visitor from delving further into her/his discovery:

Imagine gaming techniques as tools to connect places, layers of knowledge and people. Thanks to the inherent intuitive nature of forever existing games, the destination is fully conveyed to the public at large!