The Potential of Gamification to Increase the Competitiveness of Tourist Destinations: literature review based on Scopus

Abstract

Gamification has emerged with the purpose of generating involvement, loyalty and, above all, providing a remarkable experience for tourists and visitors. In view of this, tourist destinations have become more sensitive to the opportunities to create new services and gamified products in the tourism industry. In this scenario, this article aims to analyze the scientific studies (theoretical and empirical) on gamification applied to tourism in order to identify elements that justify the potential of gamification to generate competitiveness in tourist destinations. In order to achieve this goal, an electronic research was carried out in the specialized Scopus database, reaching, at the end of the research, an aggregate of eleven scientific documents identified as significant for the approach of this study. Thus, this exploratory review of the literature brought the following conclusions: (1) identification of trends in the literature on tourism gamification; (2) authors and publications that stand out most in this area; (3) goals, contexts, and approaches to gamification in the industry; (4) the potential of gamification for competitiveness; and, finally, (5) the indication of the methodological approaches adopted in the studies analyzed. In addition, it was possible to make a synthesis of the knowledge on the subject, which made possible the perception of what is already known about the subject and what one needs to know, besides pointing out directions for future investigations and some limitations of investigations in this area.