Investigating the Effectiveness of Applying Gamification on Tourism Websites from the Customers’ Perspective: An Exploratory Study (Published)
Gamification is the new trend that has been speedily expanding over the past few years and still developing in various fields including tourism, especially in marketing. Despite that, information about the effectiveness of tourism gamification applications in motivating and engaging the customers is limited. This study provides a quantitative exploration of the consumers’ perception towards using gamification applications on tourism websites. It examines its effectiveness from the customers’ perspective as a marketing strategy applied by tourism websites to engage customers. Findings show that gamification cannot yet be considered an effective strategy for engaging customers with tourism websites from the customers’ perspective due to the low level of participation in gamification activities on tourism websites, the big percentage of customers unaware of its existence on tourism websites and the opinion of both those who use it and those who do not concerning its efficiency in engaging customers with tourism websites.
Keywords: Customers, Gamification, Players, tourism websites