TOURISM GO !
Everyone has heard about Pokemon GO ! , the famous augmented-reality (AR) game using real-world spots as a playground. People can download the game as an app on their smartphone and start catching Pokemons on the street in order to become the master of the game.
The
game came out on July 2016 and has concerned more than 500 million of
users in the world. The fondness is undeniable as you can see in the
video, and still in the news.
But
what is the link with tourism?
Tourism
and hospitality industries have seen in this game a new opportunity
to change the way people are travelling. Indeed, gamers tend to
accommodate their travelling schedule to the game: in fact, Pokemons
are scattered around the world so that hunters need to travel in
different cities and countries to have the chance to catch a “rare
Pokemon”. Consequence: they started choosing their destination
according to which Pokemon will be available there.
Cities
have noted this revolutionary trend and started using this worldwide
game to sell themselves and try to attract more visitors. They
quickly became vast playgrounds, and visits on several places all
over the world have incredibly increased, as Pokemons' locations
highlight the cities' heritages. For example the city of Caen
organized a photo contest with Pokemons in order for tourists to
visit the four main monuments of the town.
This
kind of games are bound to make the tourism industry thrive in a new
funny and exciting way.
People
want to have fun! Traditional tourist trails are not enough anymore.
The new generation is looking for something which will enable them to
learn while having fun.
We
are talking about a new kind of experimental marketing here. It has
become one of the new big trends in tourism and event: for the first
time, people could remember visiting places without being completely
aware of it, as they are often absorbed by the game.
Moreover,
some restaurants, pubs and shops took advantage of the game's tricks
to install more Pokemons inside their shops and attract more
customers. Pokemon Go has become a real communication tool. For
instance, the hotel Radisson Blu in Toulouse shared about their
Pokemons on social media and set up a special discount to each
customer coming back with a picture of Pokemon taken inside the
hotel.
Tourism
and hospitality industries are not the only one taking notes of this
trend.
The
Event industry is also starting to surf on this new wave of AR game
concept. Indeed some firms already offer the possibility for event
companies to federate its teams through a special app.
Let's
introduce Yucca Gamification !
This
company offers several services for tourism, hospitality and event
industries. Regarding events, they have created “Event'Game”,
which is a solution to create technological experiences during the
event. It consists in solving mysteries in teams, including
geo-localisation, videos and AR.
This
augmented-reality version of tourism and event is considered as a
technological advance. We can guess that it will be popularized soon
enough. The tourism, hospitality and event industries have already
adopted this trend and use its benefits plenty.
However,
AR is already disputed. Issues such as sharing data, property law,
confusion between reality and fiction, and so on, have been raised.
Is it the start of a fictional world, where people would only
interact between each other through technology? Would traditional
team building activities be more effective and congenial in the end?
Would you rather explore the world with your phone than with your own
eyes?
It
is a fact the AR is revolutionary first of all in terms of research
work, but also in our subject in term of thrill, discoveries and
sensations. Yet, our world still has a long way to go to completely
accept AR, stepping back seems to be impossible though.
References:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2016/08/game/
