The strategic use of gamification and its impact in tourism

This dissertation aims to understand if consumers are interested to have gamification incorporated in their tourism experiences and if tourism providers obtain a sustained competitive advantage by implementing a gamification strategy. Several examples of gamification applied in the tourism sector are studied in order to understand how selected tourism providers are using gamification to differentiate their offerings and the value proposition being offered to tourists. Afterwards, an online questionnaire is conducted to assess consumer’s attitude towards these examples. In addition, the internal resource that a tourism provider obtain from implementing a gamification strategy is tested through the application of the RBV framework in order to verify if it provides a source of sustained competitive advantage. The results show that consumers are interested to have gamification in their tourism experiences and tourism providers develop a sustained competitive advantage by implementing a gamification strategy. Therefore, it is recommended that tourism providers leverage gamification by taking the essence of what makes games so appealing and applying it to create superior and innovative products and services that enhance experiences, increase engagement and improve loyalty