How to design hotel gamified applications effectively: Understanding the motives of users as hotel visitors

Abstract

The service sector including tourism and hospitality have recognized the need for a turn to a customer-centric approach that primarily values tourists’ needs, wants, preferences and requirements as major determinants in travel decisions. Considering that mobile devices are becoming travel buddies and that their use is profoundly influencing traveller’s journey highlights the need of Gamification. As a relatively new phenomenon in the industry, motives encouraging usage behaviour have yet to be researched. Identifying these motives could offer several advantages to hotels by providing relationship marketing, engagement and strengthening customer loyalty. This research tries to fill this gap and enhance existing gamification research by understanding the motives of users’ continuance intention in adopting technology with gamification characteristics. Visual material based on the current definitions of gamification was prepared to create a hotel gamified application to help participants discuss their preferences.