Development of an authoring toolapplication for project CHIC

Development of an authoring tool

application for project CHIC

Rui Emanuel Cabral de Almeida Quaresma

Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Informática e Computação

Supervisor: Pedro Cardoso Co-Supervisor: António Coelho

CHIC

Rui Emanuel Cabral de Almeida Quaresma

Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Informática e Computação

Given that, nowadays, tourism is one of the leading industries worldwide, tourism organizations must innovate when creating new experiences to attract more tourists. One way to make these experiences more ludic and engaging is to apply technology and location-based services (LBS), which will spark interest in tourists and make them interact more with the touristic sites.

To create such experiences, we developed this dissertation as part of the project CHIC (Co-operative Holistic View on Internet and Content) that aims to study and develop a digital system based on location to provide its users with ludic experiences focused on the exploration of touris-tic points of interest. This system is composed of a tourists’ application (that will guide the user through these experiences) and an authoring tool application (where these experiences will be cre-ated and edited). The experiences consist of paths that link points of interest for the user to visit. The authoring tool displays a map to allow the user to create points of interest and build multiple touristic experience paths. Once the experience is created, it is stored at the server, and once it is published, it becomes available to be fetched by the tourists’ application.

The focus of this project was the development of the authoring tool and the tourists’ applica-tion. The conceptualization of the system was done in collaboration with a UX team, while the backend was developed by another team that is also part of the CHIC project.

The system was validated using quality assurance tests, focused on system testing to verify the system integrity, on assessing system performance, and on confirming that all the system require-ments were met. From the test results, we could conclude that the system is working as expected without integrity issues and with a good performance. These tests validated the technologies we selected to develop the applications.

Keywords: Location-Based Services, Web Development, Authoring Tool, Smart Tourism, Pro-gressive Web Application

Dado que, atualmente, o turismo é uma das mais rentáveis indústrias a nível mundial, as empresas turísticas devem inovar ao criar novas experiências de forma a atrair mais turistas. Uma forma de tornar estas experiências mais lúdicas e cativantes é através da utilização de tecnologia e de serviços baseados na localização, o que irá despertar interesse nos turistas e fazê-los interagir mais com locais turísticos.

Para criar estas experiências desenvolveu-se esta dissertação, que se enquadra no projeto CHIC (Cooperative Holistic View on Internet and Content) e que tem como objetivo estudar e desen-volver um sistema digital baseado na localização para oferecer aos seus utilizadores experiências lúdicas focadas na exploração de pontos de interesse turístico. Este sistema é composto por uma aplicação para turistas (que irá guiar os utilizadores durante as experiências) e uma ferramenta de autoria (onde essas experiências serão criadas e editadas). As experiências consistem em rotas que ligam diferentes pontos de interesse para o utilizador visitar. A ferramenta de autoria contém um mapa que permite ao utilizador criar pontos de interesse e criar rotas turísticas com eles. No final da criação de uma experiência, esta é guardada no servidor e assim que for publicada, fica disponível para ser mostrada na aplicação para turistas.

O foco deste projeto foi o desenvolvimento da ferramenta de autoria e da aplicação para tur-istas. A conceptualização do sistema foi feita em colaboração com uma equipa de UX, enquanto que o backend foi desenvolvido por outra equipa que também integra o projeto CHIC.

O sistema foi validado através de testes de garantia de qualidade focados em testes de sistema para verificar a integridade do mesmo, em verificar a sua performance, e em confirmar que todos os requisitos do sistema foram cumpridos. Dos resultados dos testes, pudemos concluir que o sistema funciona como previsto sem problemas de integridade e com boa performance.

Keywords: Serviços Baseados em Localização, Desenvolvimento Web, Ferramenta de Autoria, Smart Tourism, Progressive Web Application

My supervisor Pedro Cardoso for all the support, guidance, advice, availability, and constant feed-back through the entire project. I also thank my second supervisor António Coelho for his feedfeed-back and opinions.

The teams, part of the CHIC project, that helped to create this project and were always avail-able to discuss ideas and suggest improvements.

My friends for all the support, advice, laughter, and companionship.

My family for their kindness, patience, support, and endless love throughout my life.

Rui Emanuel Cabral de Almeida Quaresma

Martin Luther King Jr.

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Context and Motivation . . . 1

1.2 Project . . . 3

1.3 Dissertation Structure . . . 4

2 State of the Art 6 2.1 Digital media in tourism experiences . . . 6

2.1.1 Tourism growth . . . 6

2.1.2 Digital media and digital-induced tourism . . . 7

2.1.3 Smart tourism . . . 7

2.1.4 Digital media applications on touristic places . . . 9

2.2 Tourism gamification and virtualization . . . 10

2.2.1 Applications, benefits and disadvantages . . . 11

2.2.2 Examples of tourism games and gamified apps . . . 16

2.3 Technologies . . . 27

2.3.1 Mobile technologies . . . 27

2.3.2 Progressive Web Apps Frameworks/Libraries . . . 33

2.4 Summary . . . 37

3 Related work 39 3.1 Location-Based Tour Guides . . . 39

3.1.1 Personalized and location-based mobile tourism services (CRUMPET project) 39 3.1.2 Web mobile application with new generation inputs . . . 40

3.1.3 Survey on intelligent personalized mobile tour guides and a use case walk-ing tour app . . . 41

3.1.4 Tour-Guide: providing location-based tourist information on mobile phones 41 3.1.5 Urbis: a touristic virtual guide . . . 42

3.1.6 VISIT: Virtual Intelligent System for Informing Tourists . . . 43

3.1.7 A personal tourism navigation system to support travelling multiple desti-nations with time restrictions . . . 43

3.1.8 Development and Application of Intelligent Tour Guide System in Mobile Terminal . . . 44

3.1.9 The city as a learning gamified platform . . . 45

3.1.10 Unified Context-Aware Augmented Reality Application Framework for User-Driven Tour Guides . . . 45

3.1.11 Smart Booklet: Tour guide system with mobile augmented reality . . . . 46

3.1.12 Design and Evaluation of Intelligent Tourist Guide System Based on Mo-bile Devices . . . 47

3.1.13 Tourism for all: a mobile application to assist visually impaired users in

enjoying tourist services . . . 47

3.2 Location-Based Games . . . 48

3.2.1 Location based transmedia storytelling: enhancing the tourism experience 48 3.2.2 Effects of integrating a mobile game-based learning framework in a cul-tural tourism setting . . . 49

3.2.3 Narrative design for Rediscovering Daereungwon: A location-based aug-mented reality game . . . 49

3.2.4 The Pokémon GO experience: a location-based Augmented Reality mo-bile game goes mainstream . . . 50

3.3 Authoring Tools for Location-Based Applications . . . 51

3.3.1 An Authoring tool for location-based mobile games with Augmented Re-ality features . . . 51

3.3.2 Designing ActionTrack: a state-of-the-art authoring tool for location-based games and other activities . . . 52

3.3.3 Beaconing: Breaking Educational Barriers with Contextualised, Pervasive and Gameful Learning . . . 52

3.3.4 Locatify’s Creator CMS . . . 53

3.4 Discussion . . . 54

3.5 Summary . . . 57

4 Digital System to Create Location-Based Ludic Experiences for Tourists 65 4.1 The Solution . . . 65

4.2 System Requirements . . . 67

4.2.1 Functional Requirements . . . 67

4.2.2 Non-Functional Requirements . . . 68

4.3 Architecture . . . 69

4.3.1 Research Question: How can we design this Authoring Tool with an ar-chitecture of a modular system capable of including new modules in the future? . . . 69

4.3.2 Applications Interfaces . . . 70

4.4 Methodology and Work Plan . . . 71

4.5 Summary . . . 72

5 Implementation of the System 74 5.1 Technologies . . . 74

5.1.1 PWA . . . 74

5.1.2 Angular and Ionic . . . 75

5.1.3 Firebase . . . 76 5.1.4 JavaScript Libraries . . . 77 5.2 Authoring Tool . . . 78 5.2.1 Prototype 1 . . . 79 5.2.2 Prototype 2 . . . 85 5.2.3 Prototype 3 . . . 91 5.3 Tourists’ Application . . . 100 5.3.1 Prototype 1 . . . 101 5.3.2 Prototype 2 . . . 104 5.4 Modules . . . 108 5.4.1 Information Module . . . 109

5.4.2 Location Module . . . 109

5.5 Authoring Tool – Code Documentation . . . 110

5.5.1 Folder Structure and Content . . . 110

5.5.2 Core . . . 113

5.5.3 Dashboard . . . 114

5.5.4 Experience . . . 114

5.5.5 Stores . . . 119

5.5.6 Service Worker . . . 119

5.6 Tourists’ Application – Code Documentation . . . 120

5.6.1 Folder Structure and Content . . . 120

5.6.2 Core . . . 123 5.6.3 Dashboard . . . 124 5.6.4 Experience . . . 124 5.6.5 Experiences-Map . . . 129 5.6.6 Favourites . . . 130 5.6.7 Filter . . . 130 5.6.8 Stores . . . 131 5.6.9 Service Worker . . . 131 5.7 Summary . . . 131 6 System Testing 133 6.1 Tests’ Structure and Procedures . . . 134

6.2 Results . . . 145

6.2.1 Authoring Tool Results . . . 145

6.2.2 Tourists’ Application Results . . . 150

6.3 Conclusions . . . 154 7 Conclusions 156 7.1 Summary . . . 156 7.2 Conclusions . . . 157 7.3 Limitations . . . 158 7.4 Future work . . . 159

A Authoring Tool Tests Guide 163

B Tourists’ Application Tests Guide 167

C Links 170

1.1 The teams involved in this project . . . 2

2.1 International tourism world prediction . . . 7

2.2 Concept of In-Joy-Life smart tourism . . . 9

2.3 Realities.io VR game . . . 12

2.4 Questo – City exploration game . . . 12

2.5 New York City Quiz game . . . 13

2.6 Smile Land Thailand mobile game . . . 17

2.7 Brazil Quest Game . . . 18

2.8 Lufthansa Group VR game . . . 19

2.9 Discover Hong Kong City Walks . . . 20

2.10 REXplorer app for Regensburg, Germany . . . 21

2.11 Geocaching treasure hunt game . . . 22

2.12 Eye Shakespeare app, Stratford Upon Avon . . . 25

2.13 TurfHunt Treasure Hunt Game app - map, nearby tours and games, game page . . 26

2.14 TurfHunt Treasure Hunt Game app - challenges and scoreboard . . . 27

2.15 Detailed comparison of Vue, Angular and React . . . 35

4.1 Experience Page of the Authoring Tool . . . 66

4.2 Dashboard page and Experience Page (Map View) of the Tourists’ Application . 66 4.3 Architecture diagram . . . 69

4.4 Initial authoring tool wireframes . . . 70

4.5 Initial tourists’ application wireframes . . . 71

5.1 NgRx diagram . . . 76

5.2 Add Activity button . . . 77

5.3 Cytoscape canvas . . . 77

5.4 Leaflet map with OSM tiles canvas . . . 78

5.5 Dashboard page – prototype 1 . . . 79

5.6 Modal panels in the dashboard page – prototype 1 . . . 80

5.7 Experience page – prototype 1 . . . 81

5.8 Activities context menu in the experience page – prototype 1 . . . 81

5.9 Experience page with the update activity menu – prototype 1 . . . 82

5.10 Update activity menu – prototype 1 . . . 82

5.11 Update activity menu sections – prototype 1 . . . 83

5.12 Connections context menu in the experience page – prototype 1 . . . 84

5.13 Experience page with the update connection menu – prototype 1 . . . 84

5.14 Update connection menu – prototype 1 . . . 85

5.15 Delete element alert – prototype 1 . . . 85

5.16 Dashboard page – prototype 2 . . . 86

5.17 Modal panels in the dashboard page – prototype 2 . . . 86

5.18 Experience page map view – prototype 2 . . . 87

5.19 Experience page canvas view – prototype 2 . . . 88

5.20 Preview experience – prototype 2 . . . 88

5.21 Experience page with the update activity menu – prototype 2 . . . 89

5.22 Update activity menu – prototype 2 . . . 89

5.23 Preview activity – prototype 2 . . . 90

5.24 Update activity menu id and content sections – prototype 2 . . . 90

5.25 Dashboard page – prototype 3 . . . 91

5.26 Modal panels in the dashboard page – prototype 3 . . . 92

5.27 Experience page map view – prototype 3 . . . 92

5.28 Experience page navigation menu – prototype 3 . . . 93

5.29 Activities pins – prototype 3 . . . 93

5.30 Select set of activities – prototype 3 . . . 94

5.31 Linear set of activities – prototype 3 . . . 94

5.32 Branched set of activities – prototype 3 . . . 94

5.33 Cyclic set of activities – prototype 3 . . . 95

5.34 Exploratory set of activities – prototype 3 . . . 95

5.35 Experience page canvas view – prototype 3 . . . 95

5.36 Preview experience – prototype 3 . . . 96

5.37 Experience page with the update activity menu – prototype 3 . . . 96

5.38 Update activity menu – prototype 3 . . . 97

5.39 Update activity menu sections – prototype 3 . . . 97

5.40 Content section for the location module – prototype 3 . . . 98

5.41 Preview activity screens – prototype 3 . . . 99

5.42 Experience page with the connection menu – prototype 3 . . . 99

5.43 Experience page with the connection menu – prototype 3 . . . 100

5.44 Experience page alerts – prototype 3 . . . 100

5.45 Dashboard page and application navigation menu – prototype 1 . . . 101

5.46 Experience pages and activity pages – prototype 1 . . . 102

5.47 Experience navigation menu – prototype 1 . . . 103

5.48 Activities pins – prototype 1 . . . 104

5.49 Experiences, favourites, filters and menu pages – prototype 2 . . . 104

5.50 Experiences map page – prototype 2 . . . 105

5.51 Experience pages and activity pages – prototype 2 . . . 106

5.52 Partially and fully completed experience modal panel – prototype 2 . . . 107

5.53 Experience navigation menu – prototype 2 . . . 108

5.54 Experience pins – prototype 2 . . . 108

5.55 Activities pins – prototype 2 . . . 108

5.56 Information Module . . . 109

5.57 Location Module . . . 110

5.58 Source folder structure . . . 111

5.59 App folder structure . . . 111

5.60 Core folder structure . . . 112

5.61 Pages folder structure . . . 112

5.62 Dashboard and Experience folders structure . . . 112

5.64 Source folder structure . . . 120

5.65 App folder structure . . . 121

5.66 Core folder structure . . . 121

5.67 Pages folder structure . . . 122

5.68 Pages inside folders structure . . . 122

5.69 DashboardState and AppState store folders structure . . . 122

6.1 Authoring Tool Functionality Tests . . . 146

6.2 Authoring Tool Recoverability Tests . . . 146

6.3 Authoring Tool Exception Handling Tests . . . 147

6.4 Authoring Tool Graphical User Interface Tests . . . 148

6.5 Authoring Tool Ad-hoc Tests . . . 148

6.6 Authoring Tool Performance Tests . . . 149

6.7 Authoring Tool Compatibility Tests . . . 150

6.8 Tourists’ Application Functionality Tests . . . 151

6.9 Tourists’ Application Recoverability Tests . . . 151

6.10 Tourists’ Application Exception Handling Tests . . . 152

6.11 Tourists’ Application Graphical User Interface Tests . . . 152

6.12 Tourists’ Application Ad-hoc Tests . . . 152

6.13 Tourists’ Application Performance Tests . . . 153

6.14 Tourists’ Application Compatibility Tests . . . 153

6.15 Authoring Tool Tests . . . 154

6.16 Tourists’ Application Tests . . . 154

7.1 Interaction between the authoring tool and the new modules application . . . 159

2.1 Best Practices of Gamification in Tourism . . . 14

2.2 Benefits of tourism gamification . . . 15

2.3 Disadvantages of tourism gamification . . . 16

2.4 Geocache Types . . . 23

2.5 Grandfathered Cache Types . . . 24

2.6 Native, Web, Hybrid and PWA comparison based on key-features . . . 32

3.1 Approaches used in each of the case studies presented . . . 56

3.2 Summary of the location-based tourist guides studies analysed . . . 59

3.3 Summary of the location-based games studies analysed . . . 61

3.4 Summary of the authoring tools studies analysed . . . 62

3.5 Possible technologies and features . . . 63

6.1 Types of tests executed . . . 134

6.2 Authoring Tool Test Cases . . . 135

6.3 Tourists’ Application Test Cases . . . 141

6.4 Authoring Tool Test environments . . . 145

6.5 Tourists’ Application Test environments . . . 150

CHIC Cooperative Holistic View on Internet and Content

CSS Cascading Style Sheets

DOM Document Object Model

EMBRATUR Brazilian Tourist Board

FEUP Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto

GPRS General Packet Radio Service

GPS Global Positioning System

GSM Global System for Mobile Communications

GUI Graphical User Interface

HTML HyperText Markup Language

HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure

IT Information Technologies JN Jornal de Notícias LBS Location-Based Services MVC Model-View-Controller MVVM Model-View-Viewmodel NFC Near-Field Communication OS Operative System OSM OpenStreetMap

PDA Personal Digital Assistant

POI Point of Interest

PWA Progressive Web Apps

REST Representational State Transfer

RFID Radio-frequency identification

TAT Tourism Authority of Thailand

UCP Catholic University of Portugal

UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service

UNWTO World Tourism Organization

UI User Interface

UX User Experience

VR Virtual Reality

W3C World Wide Web Consortium

Introduction

This chapter describes the context and goals of the work to be developed, as well as the structure of this document. The Section 1.1 describes the context and motivation for this project. The Section1.2presents the reasons for this project to be developed and its goals. Lastly, Section1.3 enumerates the structure of this document.

1.1

Context and Motivation

This dissertation is involved in the project CHIC1 (Cooperative Holistic View on Internet and Content) that aims to study and develop a digital system based on location to provide its users with ludic experiences focused on the exploration of touristic points of interest. This system is composed of a tourists’ application (that will guide the user through these experiences) and an authoring tool application (where these experiences will be created and edited). This project is performed in collaboration between the Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto (FEUP), Gema Digital, Catholic University of Portugal (UCP) and Jornal de Notícias (JN).

There are three teams involved in the development of this system, from different courses at FEUP. We are the implementation team, the ones that create the two applications and connect them to the server. The backend team created the backend for the system making sure that all con-nections are secure. The UX team created a design system for the applications and then designed prototypes for the applications. They also designed the modules that the users of the authoring tool will be able to apply to the activities inside the experiences.

1_{https://chic.mog-technologies.com/[Access date: Jun 29, 2020]}

Figure 1.1: The teams involved in this project

Tourists are increasing in number all over the world in a way that is without precedent [9]. Dimitrios Buhalis [15] defends the value of Information Technologies (IT) in tourism. In his study [15] he states that “unless the current tourism industry improves its competitiveness, by utilizing the emerging ITs and innovative management methods, there is a danger for exogenous players to enter the marketplace, jeopardizing the position of the existing ones”. People are always looking for new, different and exciting things to do or visit, valuing innovation and out of the box experiences [15]. These experiences can be delivered to the tourists as Mobile Apps (with or without gamification components) or as Mobile Games [58].

“Having surpassed 5 billion people connected to mobile services in 2017, the global mobile industry will reach further milestones over the next eight years” [50]. Developing countries are the main booster of this growth [50]. Since in developed countries the majority of the population already has mobile devices, the growth in these countries is slowing down [50]. According to this study [50] “the more significant growth opportunity will lie in mobile internet – a market that will add 1.75 billion new users over the next eight years, reaching a milestone of 5 billion mobile internet users in 2025”. This has led to the need of online portals and web applications to adapt to mobile devices, from which emerged Apps or Mobile Applications.

In the beginning of mobile apps, we had native apps, mobile web, and hybrid apps. Native apps are mobile applications specific for a certain Operative System (OS) that “take full advantage of their particular features” and need to be developed using “that OS’s language and framework” [107]. Mobile web apps are websites designed for mobile devices [107]. “Hybrid apps are mobile web applications packed into a native app” [107]. Nowadays, there are Progressive Web Apps (PWA), a technology that aims to deal with cross-platform issues while maintaining native apps’ performance and delivering a web-based experience [34].

According to Wang et al. study [130], with all the content available on smartphones and access to instant information, these mobile devices “can change tourists’ behaviour and emotional states by addressing a wide variety of information needs”. These allow “tourists to more effectively solve problems, share experiences, and ‘store’ memories” [130]. This shows that tourism organizations have to invest in Mobile Services and Mobile Apps in order to attract the interest of the tourists.

1.2

Project

“In general, Location-Based Services [(LBS)] are considered crucial for the success of mobile applications” [106]. These services’ “broad scope of value-added features is understood that are based on the system’s awareness of the current user location” [106]. One option to deliver this kind of experience is through an App or serious game that involves a LBS. By using this kind of service and since the App is real-time we are increasing tourists engagement when visiting points of interest. The experiences will consist of a list of paths linking points of interest near the tourist’s current location. To start going through one of these paths the tourist only has to choose one from the list and follow it on the map being shown on the tourists’ phone. This tourists’ application is one of the two applications we will develop.

In order for these experiences to be created and edited, an authoring tool will be developed. This tool will be used by users responsible for creating and editing the experiences. The authoring tool will show a map to the user allowing the user to choose different points of interest and create multiple touristic experience paths with them. When finished, such experiences will be available at the server so that the tourists’ application has access to them.

Since we are looking for ease of use and for the maximum amount of people to be able to use these apps, we will develop them as PWAs (Progressive Web Apps), which are cross-platform web applications, allowing users to use the apps on desktop or mobile devices and also giving them the best offline experience when no internet connection can be established. The design and conceptualization of the whole system will be done in collaboration with the teams that are part of the project.

Research questions:

• What are the requirements for an Authoring Tool as a PWA for touristic experiences? • How can we design this Authoring Tool with an architecture of a modular system capable

of including new modules in the future?

The goals of this dissertation are the following:

1. To develop a tool that allows the authoring of ludic experiences based on touristic points of interest and tourist location;

2. To develop a tourists’ application where these experiences can be played;

3. To apply quality assurance tests for the authoring tool and for the tourists’ application; 4. To work with the other teams of the project in the implementation and optimization of the

1.3

Dissertation Structure

In Chapter1, we present an introduction to this dissertation. In Chapter2, we describe the state of the art of Digital Media in tourist experiences and mobile games in tourism and the gamification component. It also contains a comparison between the best options for the technology of the authoring tool, as well as the best frameworks or libraries to develop it. In Chapter3, we present an analysis of some related works to this project. In Chapter 4, we detail the project and its structure, answers the second research question of the project, and presents the work methodology to be applied in the implementation of the system. In Chapter 5, we answer the first research question of the project, describes the implementation phase, along with the technologies used, an explanation of the different prototypes and a thorough documentation of the developed code. In Chapter6, we present the quality assurance tests carried out and their results. In Chapter7, we present the conclusions, limitations, and future work of this dissertation.

State of the Art

This chapter contains the state of the art of this project involving areas. In Section2.1we explain today’s presence of digital media (apps, social networks, web services, etc.) in tourism experi-ences. Either as digital travel guides, virtual reality experiences, storytelling, vlogging, or as LBS that intend to use users’ locations to provide him with a personalized experience. This section is relevant to this dissertation since the tourists’ application will be a Location-Based Service, applying digital media to the tourists’ experience. In Section 2.2 we talk about the application of gamification in tourism, as a way of making touristic experiences more entertaining. We also enumerate some mobile apps used in touristic sites to create virtual experiences as well as some serious mobile games which have the goal of engaging tourists in destination experiences. This section is relevant to this dissertation in a way that the final product will be a ludic experience with some sort of gamification. In Section2.3we are analyzing the best options for the technologies of the authoring tool, the tourists’ application and the server and making a comparison to select the best ones. This section will also include the analysis and comparison of different frameworks or libraries to develop a PWA. This will allow us to choose the best technologies for the project. Lastly, in Section2.4we make a summary of this chapter.

2.1

Digital media in tourism experiences

According to UNWTO (World Tourism Organization), the “relatively strong global economy, a growing middle class in emerging economies, technological advances, new business models, af-fordable travel costs and visa facilitation” were the major factors behind the 5% increase in inter-national tourist arrivals verified in the year 2018 hitting 1.4 billion [123]. During the same year, the tourism industry generated approximately 1.7 trillion dollars [123]. And, the trend is for these numbers to keep increasing [122]. Their prediction is that the “number of international tourist arrivals will reach 1.8 billion by 2030” as shown in Figure2.1, with the “emerging economy des-tinations to grow at almost double the pace (+4.4% per year) of advanced economy ones +2.2% per year” [122].

Figure 2.1: International tourism world prediction, by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) [122]

2.1.2 Digital media and digital-induced tourism

Digital platforms for tourists have “significantly grown” in the last few years [26]. Digital media helped to create media convergence1and to promote “mobility and interactivity” [26]. As Doolin, Burgess, and Cooper [27] recognised, “content of tourism destination Websites is particularly im-portant because it directly influences the perceived image of the destination and creates a virtual experience for the consumer“. Digital media provide online information that can instantly be “ac-cessed from websites, email, web advertising, blogs, and social networking sites, among others” (this is also known as Digital Tourism) [26]. Nowadays, digital media’s convergence is being in-creasingly used by “tourism destination management organizations and other key players in the tourism industry” to advertise “tourism information and accelerate consumption propensities for tourism goods and services across destinations” [26].

“Digital-induced tourism” promotes virtual tourism by presenting “recorded or real-time” 3D images of destinations before the visit [26]. Heung [53] recognised that tourists are using more and more digital resources, like online services related to tourism, in their destinations search. "A website’s usefulness is enhanced if this contains information that can ease the traveller’s prepara-tion of trip planning” [26]. Kaplanidou and Vogt [63] concluded that information present on travel websites, related to the destinations, like upcoming events, promotions, etc., is much valued by tourists and may impact their intention to visit a destination.

2.1.3 Smart tourism

“Smart tourism is an advanced stage of tourism informationization. It consists of digital, intelli-gent, and virtual tourism based on digital, intelliintelli-gent, and virtual technology” [136]. This recent phenomenon is responsible for grouping in one place all the components related to tourism [137].

1_{Media convergence is, according to an article [33] written by Terry Flew for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a}

con-cept “involving the interconnection of information and communications technologies, computer networks, and media content”.

In recent years the word smart has increased popularity thanks to the “technological, economic and social developments” that are increasingly related to information and shared data [48]. These developments are based on “sensors, big data, open data, new ways of connectivity and exchange of information (e.g., Internet of Things, RFID, and NFC) as well as abilities to infer and reason” [48].

Due to technological developments, it is now possible for tourists to “acquire, store, dissemi-nate and exchange information” either as images or as videos regarding their travel planning and share it with anyone anywhere in the world [26]. Using destinations’ websites or applications tourists can also manage reservations interactively whenever they want [26].

The author of a TripAdvisor’s study [118] defines “‘Connected Travellers’ as those who have used a smartphone to plan or book a trip”. Their study [118] also states that “42 per cent of travellers around the world are Connected Travellers”. This type of travellers is, therefore, more used to using their smartphones to “make travel-related bookings” than “travellers overall” [118]. The trend of the last few years is for travellers to increasingly use their mobile devices during trips [42].

In a study [70] concerning Smart Living Technology, its authors talk about the main idea be-hind this concept, which is meant to help people and therefore its development is built mostly “on the concept of user-driven innovations”. It is stated that technology focus on preserving the envi-ronment should be placed on the same level as using technology for the more immediate needs of people, like increasing life quality. This concept is employed daily to “increase efficiency, afford-ability and sustainafford-ability” [70]. A basic principle behind Smart Living Technology is gathering as much information as possible regarding the environment surrounding each person [70]. To group such amount of information efficiently, “intelligent networks should be adopted”, which can be achieved by connecting people’s devices and technological products to a “coordinated manage-ment system” not using cables but using wireless technology [70]. This way users have access to all the information they need to “make more informed choices” [70].

One example of the application of Smart Living Technology is the In-Joy-Life Smart Tourism [112]. This is a project developed for Puli and Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan. These two touristic destinations are visited by a lot of tourists “all year round” [70]. This lead the Taiwan government to come with an innovative idea to ease the use of the city’s transportation services, promote shopping in selected stores, eating at selected restaurants and visit the monuments, all done with a single travel card [70]. Figure2.2displays the concept of this new smart service.

Figure 2.2: Concept of In-Joy-Life smart tourism [112]

2.1.4 Digital media applications on touristic places

Location-based technology can be used to gather information that is valuable to shape tourists experiences [119, 121]. This information consists, for example, of “geographic knowledge and behavior” [121].

Location-based services (LBS) make use of users’ geographical position to give them data and information relative to that position [22]. LBS use a “communication network and one or more positioning technologies, combined with geographical information systems which collect the information and present it to the end user” [22]. The infrastructure necessary to support an LBS service must consist of “at least these five elements: a mobile device (e.g. a cell phone or PDA), a communications network (GSM, GPRS, UMTS), a positioning component (GPS receiver), a service provider and finally, a data provider” [22].

Examples of LBS are “interactive maps, or giving directions to a destination, or recommen-dation of tours” [105]. According to Schmidt-Belz et al. [105], knowing a user’s current location allows the system to assist with user’s tasks, like for instance (examples adapted from [105]):

• The system can fill in forms or requests with the user’s current location, e.g. when a user wants to plan a bus trip, the system puts automatically the user’s current location on the from field, leaving only the to field to be filled by the user;

• “The user can ask where he is. If he feels lost, the system can provide the name of the area or an address. It can also point out the current position on a map”;

• “The user can simply ask ‘how to get there’, if the system already knows the destination (from the dialogue history) and the current position, it can provide directions”;

• When a user is following a certain path, the system can “provide location-specific informa-tion and direcinforma-tions”.

An example of an LBS applied to tourism is the mobile tourist guide. This intends to “support tourist experiences on-the-move” [120], e.g. CRUMPET [105], INTRIGUE [4], and P-TOUR

[84]. Mobile tourist guides give “personalized location-aware navigation to users through user-friendly interactions” as well as possibly highlighting points of interest in a given touristic place [84].

One of the most successful mobile city guides is Foursquare City Guide,2with more than “50 million monthly active users by the end of 2018” [100]. Its main features, listed on its Play Store page [35], include the following:

• Get information about a destination based on other persons’ reviews and feedback;

• Create a to-do list of “neighbourhood hot spots, or places users’ may want to visit while travelling”;

• Rate and take notes about places visited to “get personalized recommendations in the fu-ture”;

• Keep a record of the places visited.

LBS can also be used to provide tourists information about, for instance, recreation spots near them, live traffic information or weather updates [99]. Using tourists’ current location and accessing a “database containing all kinds of facts based on tourism”, tourists can enjoy services like, for example, getting information “about their route, traffic jams, interesting sights, nearest metro stations, airports, hotels, hospitals, shopping malls, etc.” [99]. This demonstrates both that LBS can be used to provide a large variety of services, which can all be available on a mobile device and also that LBS provides a lot of value to the tourism sector [99].

2.2

Tourism gamification and virtualization

“Gamification involves applying elements of gamefulness, gameful interaction, and gameful de-sign with a specific intention in mind” [24]. The focus of gamification, unlike games that focus more on “entertainment and pleasure”, is on influencing “players’ behaviour engagement with their environment and co-players who may also be fellow customers or service providers towards achieving meaningful interaction and engagement and potentially achieve rewards” [134]. An example of gamification is a destination creating a treasure hunt to involve tourists with the desti-nation and while playing the treasure hunt, they get to “explore various areas and to collect points, photos, memories and experiences” [134]. A difference from this to a normal game might be not having “winners nor losers” [134].

Xu et al. study [132] states that “the main motivation to play a tourism game is to gain practical information about the destination and to socialize with other people. The mixed feeling of playing games in a virtual and real environment (fantasy and fun) is also important”.

2_{https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joelapenna.foursquared&hl=en}

2.2.1 Applications, benefits and disadvantages

There are many examples of “application of game design elements in tourism”, like, for instance, a simple “loyalty card” issued by gift stores to make their customers return to the store in the future, with for instance a credit accumulation system to provide discounts [133].

“Experiences co-created by tourists and service providers” [133] are the basis of the tourism industry, which can, therefore, be seen as a service industry [125]. Tourism organizations need to determine the involvement they want from tourists in the designing of new experiences or prod-ucts, which will influence the value creation of tourists in the development of such ideas [133]. “Experience co-creation” is achieved in service systems, when tourists and tourism organizations cooperate to create new experiences [133]. Within these systems, gamification can be employed to make customers part of the experience creation or to get a company’s employees more involved with its activities [59,133].

Tourism marketing is one area where gamification can help on many levels. Some examples are: raise brand awareness, enhance tourist experiences, players’ engagement, improve customer loyalty, entertainment, and employee management [134]. But, the main benefit of tourism gamifi-cation is customizing tourists experiences [134].

Tourism destinations can create tourists’ focused games within two categories, either as “on-line/offline games” or as “location based mobile games” [132]. The former includes games which intend to promote a destination and improve its marketing, that is, they are supposed to increase “brand awareness, to attract potential customers and to build up a destination image” [132]. The latter has the purpose of focusing tourists’ experiences on engaging with the locale and making these experiences “fun and sustainable”, while also providing tourists with information about the visited places [129]. The game design of location-based games is usually inspired by the desti-nation, consisting of elements from “real environments (such as tourist attractions, cultural sites, urban and rural environments)” [126].

Tourists’ trips can be divided into three stages: “before the travel, during the travel and after the travel” [126]. Gamification can be applied to each one of these stages [126]. Before travelling, games related to the destination can be used to increase tourists’ interest in that destination and to provide information about it [132]. An example of a game that tourists can play before travelling is Realities.io.3 This is a gamified educational VR travel app that intends to provide users virtual reality experiences on “scanned and modeled real-world environments” by capturing the sites “with specialized scanning equipment” [91]. The users can interact with the app using a “giant globe” that they can rotate with VR controllers [91]. After players choose the site they want to explore, they only need to “tap the area on the virtual globe” and they get transported to that location [91].

Figure 2.3: Realities.io VR game [98]. The picture on the left shows the user interface where the players choose the place they want to see. The picture on the right shows one of the sites

available in the game.

During the travel, location-based games can be an important tool to improve tourists’ experi-ences by making them engaging and ludic [132]. An example of a tourism location-based game is Questo4. In this game, players are invited to explore “more than 50 cities” [97]. They can play “city games (quests)”, while discovering hidden stories about those cities, by tracking clues and solving enigmas [97].

Figure 2.4: Questo – City exploration game [97]. The picture on the left shows a screen with information about a place. The picture in the middle shows a menu where players can choose an

exploration quest. The picture on the right shows a screen with clues to complete a quest

After the travel, games can be used to motivate tourists to repeat the visit, to assess tourists’ opinions on the destination and their experiences there, to test their knowledge about it or even to allow tourists to share their travel’s experiences [134]. An example of a destination quiz game

4_{https://www.producthunt.com/posts/questo-city-exploration-games[Access Date: Jan 05,}

is the New York City Quiz.5 This game presents the players with “more than 300 questions from different subject areas (e.g. art and culture, food and drink, personalities, politics and events)” [51].

Figure 2.5: New York City Quiz game [51]. The picture on the left shows the main menu where the player can choose to play one of the three modes (career game, perfect game or free game).

The picture on the right shows a screen with one of the questions from the quiz.

Xu et al. study [132] analyses Chinese tourist players’ motivation and presents some findings on this subject. The focus groups present in this study showed interest in the concept of location-based mobile games, even though they prefer enjoying the destination environment without the distraction of mobile devices [132]. Generally, the study’s participants revealed they “prefer sim-ple, relaxed, not too challenging games”, although a genre differentiation was made, with men preferring “action and strategy games” and women preferring “brain, leisure games” [132].

Table2.1 presents “some examples of where gamification is applied in different tourism in-dustries” [133].

5_{https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.happyquizgames.newyorkquiz&hl=}

Table 2.1: Best Practices of Gamification in Tourism [133]

Industry Company Case Description Gaming Elements

Airline & T ransportation American Airlines

Gamified mobile app represents current elite status qualification visually.

Progress bar Points

Levels (Gold, Platinum, Executive Platinum)

Turkish Airlines

QR-coded national flags have been placed on 100 digital bus shelters for London 2012. Users who read the code can win a ticket to Australia. Goal is to have most check-ins in one place or individual places.

Physical Rewards Badges

Retail

&

Hospitality

Shopkick Users are engaged with products by applying game mechanics for incentivising offers prior to shop visits. The gamification also involves a geo-targeted approach to drive local engagement. The aim is to influence buyers’ behaviour via game mechanics.

Virtual Currency Rewards Contests

Check Points

Customers scan products to exchange for checkpoints which then can be exchanged for virtual currency or gift cards.

Virtual Currency Rewards

Starwood SPG program

Partnership with Foursquare to provide customers 250 bonus points per check-in and chances to unlock a hidden Free Resort Night Award.

Point System Badges

Marriott My Hotel

Aim of the social media game is to recruit new staff for job vacancies and familiarise players with various parts of a hotel.

Point System Levels Virtual Goods

Destination

Foursquare Users can claim mayor ships, unlock badges, receive special offers & rewards such as discounts to specific retailers while also tracking against friends via a leaderboard while checking-in at a restaurant etc..

Badges Leaderboard

Reward with real world offers

Table 2.2 enumerates the different benefits of tourism gamification in two different phases (outward function of gamification and inward function of gamification), either before, during or after tourists experiences and how it is being applied in each stage [134].

Table 2.2: Benefits of tourism gamification [134]

When Benefits How

Outward Function Before • Increase brand awareness, Tourism specific games (online games; of Gamification inspiration/dream; mobile games) feed tourism information

• Generate interests; to potential tourists, generate interests, • Information conversion stimulate visiting inspiration, increase to sales/purchase brand awareness; Virtual Reality/3D

technology as a technological tool supports these functions.

During • Engagement/interact Locatibased games encourage on-• Enhance experiences -site engagement with the destination, • Entertainment tool augmented reality games interact the

player with the real surrounding tourism attractions; Gaming as an entertainment tool to kill time. After • Loyalty/repeat visit Online games recall memories,

• Share experiences encourage sharing experiences, inviting • Recall memories friends, advocate the destination, • Advocate/ambassador rewards/coupons in the game and

gamified loyalty programs encourage repeat visit.

Inward Function • Employee management Use of games to familiarize the of Gamification • Employee training employee, use for staff training.

• Generate fun interests

Despite the benefits, there can also be downsides to gamification in tourism. For example, when a destination provides mobile games that divert the attention of tourists from visiting the destination to playing the game and collecting possible rewards. One of the main goals of these games should be to make the visitors discover, get acquainted and be engaged with the locale, and not make them look at their mobile phones the whole time.

Since these games can be used to promote behaviours, game designers need to be careful about which behaviours they want to incentivize, because choosing the wrong incentives may have a negative effect [16]. Sebastian Deterding [23] offers the example of a game in which players progress and gain points by “performing acts of kindness” [55] for other people. However, people on the receiving end were offended that the players did something nice to earn points and not because they actually cared [23].

Also, “gamification may bring out too much competitive energy”, which when applied inside a destination organization (e.g. hotels, museums, etc.) may motivate some employees to try to undermine their co-workers [16]. When a company intends to “enhance soft skills like empathy or collaborative problem-solving” of their employees, giving rewards based on “competitive or status-seeking behaviour” might have the reverse effect and create divisions between them [55].

This leads to worse “team performance or collaboration” [55]. Another downside is that high competitiveness can also result in players resigning the game if they feel that it is too hard [68].

When companies apply gamification in a “healthy business system”, which is also called ex-ploitationware, they may be prejudicing that system [133]. Although gamification has become popular and is said to provide “easy, cheap and replicable success”, if tourism destinations try to implement it not having in mind that there might be some risks associated, like “triggering an-noyance among customers and employees”, their businesses may suffer a setback [133]. Scoring systems are a way of applying gamification, however, users might sense these systems as a way to control and monitor them [10, 131]. The application of such systems into real life is called pointsification, “which might lead to a fatigue of collecting badges, points and trophies for its own sake” [133]. It can even be the reason behind the practice of voluntary activities [71,133].

Table 2.3: Disadvantages of tourism gamification

When Disadvantages How

Outward Function Before Choose the wrong behaviours to Using rewards as incentives of Gamification promote in the game may have a for some behaviours which

negative effect; are not the most desirable ones. During Divert the attention of tourists from Putting too much focus of the

visiting the destination to playing the game in gaining rewards and game and collecting possible rewards; not on exploring the

destinations.

High competitiveness can result in Adding a point system and a players resigning the game if they feel leaderboard will increase that it is too hard; competitiveness but might

also result in some players feeling unmotivated to keep playing when they see their position on the leaderboard. After Players not coming back to play the Designing difficult tasks for game again after a previous experience the players to perform in the where they found it too hard; game.

Inward Function During Gamification may bring out too much Giving rewards to players

of Gamification competitive energy. based on their completed

tasks may result in some players undermining others to get the rewards.

Tourism destinations need to measure the benefits and downsides of implementing gamifica-tion. They need to decide which gamification elements fit their system and evaluate carefully in which activities can gamification be applied [89].

2.2.2 Examples of tourism games and gamified apps

Serious games can be seen as “computer/video games” [134] with the goal of “changing user behaviour and transferring knowledge” [134], which contributes to players learning while playing these type of games and not just having fun [41]. Serious games in tourism have the goal of

providing information about destinations to tourists [134]. Below we have some examples of serious games and gamified apps from touristic destinations.

2.2.2.1 Smiled Land Thailand

This game,6created by the “Tourism Authority Thailand (TAT)” had the goal of interesting future young tourists in Thailand touristic sites [134]. The game (Figure2.6) was designed for young Facebook users, as a way to improve Thailand visibility as a tourist destination and to raise the number of visits to “TAT’s social networking media and mobile applications” [134]. To teach play-ers more about Thailand, game designplay-ers have set the game background as some of the country’s “iconic attractions, branded restaurants and shops” [134].

The game presents players with “more than 200” Thailand’s attractions [113]. Players become tourist characters that have to explore the country, find treasures on each site and pick them up to mark that place as visited [113]. Players can also buy items (e.g. food, tools, etc.) at a shop inside the game, dress their characters and collect items during the game [113]. This game also contains a few mini-games where the users will receive coins [113].

Figure 2.6: Smile Land Thailand mobile game [113,116]. The picture on the left shows the main page. The picture on the right shows the in-game map with Bangkok places for the user to

choose. 2.2.2.2 Brazil Quest Game

Two years before the 2014 FIFA World Cup, “the Brazilian Tourist Board (EMBRATUR)” [64] created a game to “promote the 12 host cities” [64] and at the same time using digital marketing to promote the country as a touristic destination [12]. As players go from city to city, they learn about Brazil’s culture [64].

The game background is composed of pictures of these cities’ tourist attractions [64]. Players need to take the “main character, Yep, an alien”, to each city with the goal of “capturing orbs” and avoid “obstacles left by his villains” [64].

Players can try to overcome other players highest scores on the leaderboard and increase their ranking [64]. To progress in the game and increase their score, players need to “overcome chal-lenges and accumulate points or orbs” [64]. Each city represents a new stage of the game and

there is also a section with a description of the city [64]. On each stage, players need to finish a mission, which can be played on three “levels (normal, hard and race)”, with a certain number of points to “win a tourist attraction” [64]. On the race level the player must run “against the enemy” and in case of defeat, “the character loses momentum and energy, being necessary to repeat the level” [64].

Figure 2.7: Brazil Quest Game [65]. The picture on the left shows the first screen of the game. The picture on the right shows an in-game image.

2.2.2.3 Lufthansa Group VR

Lufthansa has early invested on Virtual Reality (VR) technology, implemented it “into various business processes” and up until today, they continue to regularly extend “its use in the company” [103]. “Our goal was to be able to transport the entire flight experience and destinations as immer-sively as possible – the motto: try before you fly. We did just that with VR”, explained “Torsten Wingenter, Head of Digital Innovations, Lufthansa” [103].

Wanting to create such an experience and with the extensive background in VR technology, Lufthansa designed a VR game7 that provides players the opportunity to interactively visit some of Lufthansa’s destinations within a virtual experience that simulates these places [111]. The game design elements present are “avatars, rewarding, gifting, sharing and fun” [134].

Using virtual reality tourists can have a better perception of the spaces represented, either inside the planes or of their destinations [103]. This game also provides an on-flight experience to users, which includes both economic and first-class flight experiences [103]. Users can select an airline, which takes them into a VR experience in that airline, showing them the interior of the airline and simulating flight experience and they can also choose a destination, between the ones available, and “get a realistic impression” of that site [103].

7_{https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lufthansa.android.groupvr&hl=}

Figure 2.8: Lufthansa Group VR game [25]. The picture on the left shows the menu where players can select an airline to view its inside or go to the destination menu. The picture in the middle shows the menu where players can select a destination. The picture on the right shows a

VR image of the selected destination. 2.2.2.4 Discover Hong Kong City Walks

The Hong Kong Tourism Board created this gamified city tour app,8with the aim of bringing more tourists to the city to visit the touristic attractions that Hong Kong has to offer [28,134]. With this app tourists can go through a selection of four city tours relative to the following topics: 1) travel through time; 2) adventure in architecture; 3) experience living culture; 4) savour the cosmopolitan flavours [28,57]. When tourists are halfway of a tour they receive a stamp “which can be shared on Facebook” [115]. On each tour, there are several monuments and touristic sites for tourists to visit.

In this app, users start by choosing a tour topic and after initiating a tour, the app will give them the tour’s directions [57]. At any time users can consult the map which shows the sites that will be visited, see a description of one of these sites (containing the travel through time and the distance to cover) or even click on the option See what’s around, which takes the user to a screen with the site as the background, the indications of the nearest sites (as well as the distances to these) and a radar with the amount of sites left to visit [57].

8_{https://apkpure.com/discover-hong-kong%C2%B7city-walks/com.cherrypicks.HKTB}

Figure 2.9: Discover Hong Kong City Walks [57]. The picture on the upper left shows the main menu. The upper right picture shows one of the in-game screens with an image of the place, a

small description, the travel through time, the distance to cover and the options to see what’s around and a map. The bottom left picture shows the map containing the directions. The bottom

right picture shows an image of the place.

2.2.2.5 REXplorer

This gamified mobile tour guide app (Figure2.10) was created for “a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Germany” [134], Regensburg, to teach tourists about the city’s history in an innovative and interactive way [129]. In the game, tourists must help the “virtual figure ‘Rex’” in exploring the sites, personifying characters that are his assistants [134]. The app provides navigation tips to tourists taking them through paths planned to show tourists some of the city’s sights and also to make them “interact with historical buildings and characters”, making tourists learn the history of those sites [134]. The goal of the game is for players to walk to points of interest indicated by the app and find there “historically & mythologically based spirits” [87]. Playing as a virtual avatar adds “fantasy and personal” components to the experience, making it more entertaining for the player [134].

This game requires a “device composed of a mobile phone and a GPS receiver” so that the players may communicate with the spirits present in each location [87]. This device is given to the players, by the game’s organizers, together with a small manual teaching the tourists how to play and the map with the places to visit marked [87]. During the tour players receive instructions on the device to take “geo tagged pictures” of the places they visit [87]. These pictures are uploaded to the “players’ weblog”, which they will receive at the end of the experience [87]. Players interact with the spirits by “casting a spell” — as stated in the study [87] —, done with a device’s movement,

and if they choose the right spell (they discover what’s the right spell through hints given by the previous spirit) for a spirit found, unlocks quests, which are responsible for sending players to the next spirit and touristic site [87]. Apart from giving players new quests, spirits share “their story and the story of the sight they reside at” through the device [87]. Players gain points by finishing quests and using the right spells on each spirit, which improves player’s role as Rex’s assistant [87]. In the end of the experience, players return the device and receive the weblog with all the photos from their tour [87].

Figure 2.10: REXplorer app for Regensburg, Germany [129]. The picture on the upper left shows the device that the users use. The upper right picture shows playability testers enjoying the

game of on site Regensburg. The bottom left picture shows a map of the city highlighting the points players must go to (buildings and locations with paranormal activity). The bottom right

picture shows the individual souvenir geo-weblog.

2.2.2.6 Geocaching

Geocaching9 is a treasure hunt game that consists of players going to a location, whose coordi-nates are given by the game, and once on site, look for a hidden geocache [37]. Players need to have GPS-enabled devices to find the indicated location [37]. This game promotes contact between players and the locale where geocaches are hidden [134]. Although it first started as a

game for explorers and adventurers, Geocaching is now also involved in tourism "special trea-sure hunt tours” [134] as a way to create new experiences for tourists [28,39]. In the beginning, Geocaching required knowledge about GPS using, that only the most experienced ones had [39]. These were adventurers, who used it “for outdoor activities such as backpacking and boating” and therefore knew how to use it properly [39]. After some time since the game was created, Jeremy Irish adopted the term geocaching and, using his web developer knowledge, developed a website, consisting of “tools to improve the cache-hunting experience” [39], called Geocaching.com. It was online on September 2, 2000 and ready for players to find the, at the time, 75 caches spread worldwide [39].

Figure 2.11: Geocaching treasure hunt game [49] The picture on the left shows a player that found a geocache. The picture in the middle shows the map of the app highlighting geocaches.

The picture on the right shows a screen with details for a given geocache.

To receive the coordinates for a geocache, players need to go to the “‘Hide & Seek a Cache’ page”10and choose a method to look for geocaches [37]. In there, the player can choose to search by address, postal code, coordinates, cache name, search from a map, etc. [40]. This search provides a list with nearby geocaches and all the player has to do is to select one and input the given coordinates of the geocache into the GPS device, which will guide the player to the geocache [37]. Once the players find a geocache they can “sign the logbook”, put it back where it was, for the next geocachers to find it in the same place, share their experiences with their friends and move on to the next geocache [37]. The places where geocaches are hidden are chosen by the geocachers, which means that they can be hidden “all over the world”, either on more accessible sites or on sites which are difficult to reach [37].

There are sixteen different types of geocaches representing different experiences and a “differ-ent variation of the game”, which is important to keep players interested in the game [37]. Apart from these geocaches there are also 4 geocache types, which are “geocache types that are still available to find, but no longer available for creation on Geocaching.com” [38], called Grandfa-thered Cache Types. Geocache types are listed in Table2.4and Table2.5.

Table 2.4: Geocache Types. Symbols and names from [38]. Descriptions adapted from [38]

Symbol Name Description

Traditional Geocache

This is the original type of geocache. They consist of a container at the given coordinates. Smaller ones contain a logbook and larger ones contain also items and trackables. Mystery or

Puzzle Caches

This geocache consists of puzzles that the players will first need to solve to determine the correct coordinates

Multi-Cache This involves more than one location, with the final location being a physical container with a logbook inside. Usually when players arrive at a location they get a clue to the location of the next geocache.

EarthCache This teaches players about a feature of the Earth. It includes educational notes along with coordinates. To log an EarthCache, players have to answer questions by observing the geological location.

Letterbox Hybrid

This uses clues instead of coordinates. It contains a stamp that players can use to log their visit.

Event Cache This is a gathering of local geocachers or geocaching

organizations. “The Event Cache page specifies a time for the event and provides coordinates to its location. After the event has ended, it is archived”.

Cache In Trash Out Event (CITO)

This is the “environmental initiative supported by the

geocaching community”. The goal of this initiative is to clean up and preserve natural areas.

Mega-Event Cache

This is an “Event Cache that is attended by 500+ people”. It is held annually and consists of a day of organized activities.

Giga-Event Cache

This is like a Mega-Event but is attended by 5000+ people and lasts for more than one day. Since it is a rare event, it attracts geocachers from all around the globe.

Wherigo™ Cache

This is a “toolset for creating and playing GPS-enabled adventures in the real world”. “Wherigo allows geocachers to interact with physical and virtual elements such as objects or characters while still finding a physical geocache container”. To play participate in this experience players need a

Wherigo-enabledGPS device. Geocaching

HQ Geocache

This is located at Geocaching HQ in Seattle, Washington. Players interested in visiting HQ to sign the logbook “should make an appointment at least 48 hours in advance”.

GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit

These are designed to teach people “about GPS technology and geocaching through interactive science experiences”.

Lab Caches This is an “experimental and extremely rare geocache type”. These geocaches mean to be the testing phase of new geocache ideas. Geocachers that find these are helping to improve geocaching.

Geocaching HQ Celebration

This is used by Geocaching HQ to celebrate ten years anniversaries of geocaching with “a large event in Seattle, Washington”.

Geocaching HQ Block Party

“Geocaching HQ hosted Block Parties annually between 2011 and 2015 in Seattle, Washington, outside the Geocaching HQ office”. “Geocaching HQ intends to host future Block Parties”. Community

Celebration Event

This is a “special Event Cache type for community celebrations”.

Table 2.5: Grandfathered Cache Types. Symbols and names from [38]. Descriptions adapted from [38]

Symbol Name Description

Virtual Cache This is about “discovering a location rather than a container”. Players must visit the coordinates before logging.

Webcam Cache

This is a geocache that uses “web cameras that monitor various areas like parks or business complexes”. “The idea is to get players in front of the camera and save a screen capture from the website where the camera is displayed in order to log a find”.

Project A.P.E. Cache

This type of geocache was a joint project with “20th Century Fox to support the movie Planet of the Apes”. “Each geocache represented a fictional story in which scientists revealed an Alternative Primate Evolution (A.P.E.)”. Locationless

(Reverse) Cache

This “could be considered the opposite of a Traditional Cache”. Players locate a specific object and log its coordinates, instead of looking for a hidden box. “New locationless geocaches are now Waymarks”.11

2.2.2.7 Eye Shakespeare

This gamified mobile app12 was developed by “Stratford upon Avon, the hometown of Shake-speare” [134] as a way to make tourists’ experience there more interesting [104]. The goal of the app was to teach the history of the city to tourists [104]. The technologies used were “augmented reality, QR-code and geo positioning systems” which were used to design virtual images of the historical buildings and sites of the town [104].

12_{http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/visit-the-houses/eye-shakespeare-app.html [Access}

Apart from exploring “both spatially and historically the Shakespeare’s home town”, tourists can also read archives from “the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s archives” which were digitised [104]. The app also presents a “3D virtual ‘Shakespeare’” to tourists [104]. This figure is re-sponsible for providing an audio consisting of Shakespeare’s voice talking about his birthplace, showing tourists the touristic points of interest and allowing “them to take a photo together with this virtual figure” [134].

This is a different form of a tour guide, which makes it more entertaining for tourists to learn about the city [104]. The game design elements present in this are “reward, storytelling, fun, it provides tourists with fun, interactive, and engaging experiences” [134].

Figure 2.12: Eye Shakespeare app, Stratford Upon Avon [134]. The picture on the left shows a map highlighting some important places from Shakespeare’s life. The picture in the centre shows a screen detailing one of those places. The picture on the right shows the screen where is possible

to hear a virtual figure of Shakespeare talk about his life.

2.2.2.8 TurfHunt Treasure Hunt Game app

TurfHunt Treasure Hunt13 is a mobile treasure hunting game that consists of challenges, which are activated based on players’ location [77]. It was developed by Locatify,14which is a company “founded in November 2009 in Iceland by Leifur Björn Björnsson and Anna Steinunn Gunnars-dóttir” [52]. The Creator CMS15is an online system created by this company that is intended to help users develop and publish develop “their own treasure hunt and smartguide applications for smartphones” [52]. The TurfHunt app provides a platform for playing competitive treasure hunt games [77]. The treasure hunts are created in the “Creator CMS by players or game facilitators and can be shared with other groups” [74]. This game is intended for small groups of people, so

13_{https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.locatify.treasurehunt [Access}

date: Jan 12, 2020]

14_{https://locatify.com/[Access date: Jan 12, 2020]}

that the teams are small and everyone gets to have an equal participation in the game [77]. This app can also be used for creators to test new apps created in “the Locatify Creator CMS prior to upgrading to a branded app”[74], which is an advanced applications that users can build with the Creator CMS [76].

Figure 2.13: TurfHunt Treasure Hunt Game app [75]. The picture on the left shows the map with challenges locations. The picture in the middle shows a list of nearby tours and games. The picture on the right shows the page of a game with a description, the number of locations to visit

and the number of challenges.

When users open the app the first screen shown consists of a map centred on the player’s coordinates, highlighting nearby active games, and after selecting one, players get the option to join the game and see the challenges they have to complete [77]. For each challenge solved players receive “virtual gold or points” [77]. Players can play the treasure hunts, which are composed of “problem solving and exploration activities, finding treasures, and playing mini-games”, with other players as teams, making it more competitive, or by themselves [77]. An example of an item that players can use during the game is the “elixir of invisibility which hides the team location from the map for a short time” [77].

The Creator CMS allows the game’s administrator to “invite players, change game play set-tings, publish games and monitor player activity via the game observer tool” [77].