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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of gamification as a novel technique in motivating community engagement in disaster-related activities in order to address the question of how gamification can be incorporated into disaster emergency planning.

This study conducts a systematic literature review and explores available gamified applications for disaster emergency planning and their purpose of use. In total, 51 scholarly articles on the topic and 35 disaster-related gamified applications are reviewed.

The findings reveal the following: (a) gamified applications (n = 35) are used for education, research and intervention purposes; (b) gamified applications create new opportunities for community engagement and raise disaster awareness among the community in virtual environments; and (c) gamified applications help shape a new culture – i.e. gamified culture – that supports smart disaster emergency planning practice.

During the recent years, utilisation of game elements in non-game contexts – i.e., gamification – has become a popular approach in motivating people in various actions. Increasing research highlighted the benefits of gamification in enhancing community engagement, creating interactive environments, providing better behavioural outcomes and influencing democratic processes. Despite some of the applications indicating the potential of gamification in disaster emergency planning, the use of gamification technique in this discipline is an understudied area. This study reveals gamification can be incorporated into disaster emergency planning.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to present gamified mobile experiences as valid tools for DMOs to enrich the experience of tourists, and to present the benefits provided to DMOs by analytics tools integrated on gamified mobile experiences.

Staff from three DMOs have generated a gamified mobile experience using a custom authoring tool designed and developed to fulfil their requirements. This gamified experience has targeted families with children visiting Basque Country during off-peak season. The experience has been validated over a period of seven weeks within a pilot project promoted by the local tourist information offices of the DMOs. Data directly provided by tourists and data gathered from analytic tools integrated on the gamified mobile experience have been analysed to fulfil the research objectives presented on the paper.

Both DMOs and tourists can benefit from gamified mobile experiences. The integration of analytics tools to gain insights into the behaviour of tourists can be a relevant information source for DMOs.

The pilot project has targeted a niche tourism market, families with children visiting Basque Country, and has been running during off-peak season. Further studies focusing on other tourist types and different tourism season and destination types will be required to strengthen the validation of the research objectives presented on this paper.

The paper promotes both the development of gamified mobile experiences and the inclusion of analytics tools for DMOs to obtain relevant information about tourists and the mobile experiences.

A gamified mobile experience is generated by DMOs, validated on the basis of experience of real tourists. The analytics tools inside the gamified mobile experience provide DMOs with relevant information.

Drawing from the Personal Construct Theory, this study aims to analyze the impact of using gamified apps on user behavior by investigating the service-related images and individual preferences of Generation Z (GenZ) consumers, as these emerge from gamified applications in a tourism context.

The repertory grid analysis (RGA) elicited the top elements that reflect GenZer perceptions in tourism from empirical studies in the UK and Greece. Generalized procrustes analysis was used to investigate the structure of the data for the creation of representative consensus biplots of the most important conceptual constructs to advance consumer decision-making modeling via gamification.

As per different gamified app best-practices considered, the authors extract not only common perceptual elements (e.g. place informative aspects, exploration, lodgings, food/catering) but also different image components (e.g. virtual/interactive, business vs commercial traveling, entertainment, heritage/cultural informative aspects) from comparing UK with Greek GenZers’ responses. These extracted attributes are then presented in two dimensional charts, respectively, toward creating tourist perception scales.

Notwithstanding the wide availability of gamified apps, research on gamification design in tourism and hospitality is still in the early phase. This study demonstrates the need to identify and optimize the formation of different images among GenZers. It also highlights the advantageous nature of the proposed combination of procrustes analysis with the RGA.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first empirical ones toward creating scales for measuring tourist perceptions of GenZers coming from different consumer markets. It responds to scholars’ recent calls for better informing gamification design and improving contemporary consumer experience.

Gamification introduces game-like properties into routine service processes to make them more engaging for service employees and users alike. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of gamification mechanics, or game design principles, on user engagement in gamified healthcare services.

Through observations, interviews and the study of desk materials, two cases of gamified healthcare services, each using different game mechanics, are analyzed.

Gamification mechanics produce four distinct experiential outcomes in patients: challenge, entertainment, social dynamics, and escapism. Patient engagement can be stimulated through these outcomes. However, to fully enjoy the benefits of gamified services, users are often expected to acquire and use new skills. The relative absence of these skills (or difficulties in acquiring them), depending on users’ medical predispositions and age, may defer or negatively moderate the positive effects of gamification on engagement. In the case of progressively decreasing capabilities (e.g. in the case of aging users or users with degenerative diseases, whose physical or mental disabilities may be emphasized by the mechanics), it is recommended that health professionals adapt the mechanics accordingly or search for alternative options to increase patient well-being.

The study was conducted in healthcare, and caution must be exercised in generalizing the findings to other domains. However, the finding that gamified service users’ disabilities - or the lack of required abilities – may negatively impact the encouraging or engaging effects of the use of gamification appears to be relatively universal.

This study contributes to service research, specifically in the healthcare domain, by providing insight into employees’ and users’ motivations for using gamified service processes, the experiential impact of gamification mechanics, the individual factors that influence users’ gamified experience and multiple forms of cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement outcomes. A research agenda is developed.

The present study aims to synthesize and conceptualize, through a systematic literature review (SLR), the current state of gamification knowledge in the tourism and hospitality (T&H) sector, providing a roadmap for future research recommendations for service research and practice.

The research is based on a systematic literature review and adopts a systematic quantitative approach to summarize existing evidence on gamification usage in the T&H sector, focusing on relevant service literature on gamification. The authors analyze 36 papers published between 2011 and 2019.

The authors synthesize existing knowledge into five themes describing gamification's role in T&H (Edutainment, Sustainable behavior, Engagement factors, Service provider-generated content and User-generated reviews). Then, a cross-analysis of the five themes reveals the pivotal elements (affordances, behavioral and psychological outcomes, and benefits) generated by gamification mechanics in T&H, simultaneously highlighting potential implications and relevant insights for service literature. The review identifies critical issues affecting gamification research and provides a future research agenda, considering opportunities for T&H and service research.

The study provides the first SLR investigating gamification in T&H. The findings present potential implications and relevant insights for T&H contributing to the construction of a more holistic understanding of gamification adoption in service research.

This paper seeks to understand users' perceptions of their experiences in mobile applications (apps) with gamified loyalty programs (GLPs) that use rewards as the primary engagement vehicle. The research focuses particularly on the motivations to further interact with GLPs and the motivational changes occurring after successive interactions.

The authors conducted weekly open qualitative interviews over a month (four rounds of interviews) with five Portuguese active users of the mobile app Yorn Shake It, from Vodafone, which is a relevant case study to illustrate GLPs in mobile apps.

Participants' motivations to interact with the mentioned GLP are shaped by the reward incentive and users' perceptions of the gamified interactive experience. Motivational changes occur regardless of the presence of external contingencies and depend on contextual changes or perceived results of the gamified experience. This means that rewards also satisfy intrinsic needs, but users may remain connected to the system as long as fun experiences are provided without exhausting perceptions. Also, motivation may turn to reward contingencies when the challenge becomes boring.

This is the first qualitative study explaining the perceptions of gamified experiences after continued participation, extending knowledge about the importance of a fair balance between the value and achievement of rewards and the entertainment of the challenge provided after continued exposure. The findings provide insights to GLP marketing managers and developers to better engage target audiences according to their needs and past experience, creating levels of challenges and fair rewards to maintain motivation and prevent abandonment after continued exposure.