Travel and hospitality are two industries hit hard by the Covid-19 global pandemic. People are restricted and not motivated to travel due to many travel restrictions around the world.

Despite the two-year struggle, the travel and hospitality sectors show signs of a strong revival. According to a report by Market Data Forecast, the tourism and hospitality market will be valued at around USD 9 trillion by 2027, with an annual CAGR of 3%.

Keep reading to discover the game mechanics in travel-hospitality and how gamification can benefit the travel-hospitality industry.

What is Gamification?

Gamification is the concept of incorporating game components into a non-game environment to achieve a specific goal. It is a powerful engagement strategy involving fun experiences to engage consumers and motivate them to achieve specific goals or objectives. Points, leaderboards, badges, and rewards are just a few components borrowed from games used in gamification.

Also Read: What does the future hold for gamification

Gamified apps are changing business models by implementing new strategies to deepen bonds, foster longer-term customer engagement, and reward user loyalty. To encourage participation from visitors and users, it adapts the data-driven strategies employed by game designers to encourage player interaction within the non-gaming world of applications.

Types of Game Mechanics

Challenges: Challenge is one of the most crucial game mechanics influencing or inspiring players to act.Human attributes drive us to accept challenges and show we can handle them.

Rewards: Most games usually have a points system to track the players' performance. It could be a good idea to employ badges or rewards to increase the challenge impact so that users feel even more motivated. The gamified product can utilize the same strategy to measure user engagement with the application.

Leaderboards: Leaderboards are an excellent approach to increasing competition and user engagement. The human desire to be on top of the leaderboard motivates the users to participate in the task, making the challenge even more appealing.

Trivia: Trivia engages users in a fun and entertaining way. A trivia game includes asking participants questions about exciting facts in many subjects. These interactive quizzes boost user engagement and deliver personalized experiences in real-time.

Trivia gamification image — Trivia Image

Spin the Wheel: Spin the wheel can be a great way to involve your customers. It adds excitement to your app users, whether aspiring to capture new leads, engage users or improve user experience. Incorporating spin the wheel into your gamified marketing strategy can boost your sales curve's component.

Spin the wheel upshot.ai — Spin the Wheel

Gamification in Travel - Hospitality

The most significant benefit for service-based companies (such as those in the travel-hospitality industry) is that they can boost customer loyalty by engaging users with memorable experiences. Gamification is an excellent fit for the travel and hospitality businesses. It can help drive engagement, improve customer loyalty, and raise brand awareness.

In the travel-hospitality industry, tourists look for enjoyable and memorable experiences; gamified applications can stand out by featuring games that promote and provide tourist information about the visit and location-based games that aim to improve engagement with the location and tourist places

Gamification Increases User Engagement

Gamification can significantly increase user engagement and retention. It is a simple and effective means of driving engagement with your customers. With gamified reward programs, you can convert customers into brand advocates without needing a heavy marketing or advertising campaign. Customers can track their progress, compete with others and unlock rewards, strengthening the bond between your brand and its community of loyal customers.

It Builds Customer Loyalty Base

Travel-hospitality is all about experiences. Happy customers are loyal, repeat customers and more likely to share their experiences. Increase your loyal customer base by providing interactive games, activities, or tasks. Give points or rewards for completing the action that keeps them interested and encourages users to use the app. The more happy customers you create, the more likely they recommend your brand to their friends and family.

It Improves Employee's Performance

Gamification makes the workplace experience more enjoyable for everyone. Travel and hospitality companies recognize the importance of an impeccably trained and highly motivated staff. Because these industries are all about experiences, encouraging employees to learn specific skills on how to greet and how best to satisfy a hotel guest or a restaurant client.

By leveraging gamification in employee onboarding and training, companies can boost employee motivation and performance by assigning them educational training modules.

Travel-Hospitality Brands that got Gamification Right!

IHG Group

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), a British multinational hospitality company, introduced gamified loyalty program "Win It In A Minute" to increase its loyal customer base.

Members of the InterContinental Priority Club (now known as the IHG Rewards Club) have been given one minute to answer as many trivia questions as possible. The faster they answered, the more likely they were to earn a spot in the contest's top 50 for the daily 5,000-point prize and the top 100 for the weekly 15,000-point prize. According to IHG, users played 100,000 games and earned more than 100 million priority club points in the first two weeks alone.

Air Canada

Air Canada, Canada's largest airline, has launched a gamified leaderboard program, "Earn Your Wings."

The initiative developed a leaderboard that displayed top fliers based on various activities, such as miles flown and badges earned from specific check-in tasks. Frequent fliers boosted their participation to improve their position on the leaderboard. By the end of the promotional period, "Earn Your Wings" had more than doubled the expected number of registrations.

Wrapping UP

The travel-hospitality industry is competitive and challenging. To differentiate yourself in the crowded market, implement a gamification strategy to attract travelers and tourists to your airline, hotel, or restaurant. Then make sure they have an experience they want to repeat. Or, even better, an experience they want to share with their friends and family.

Design a rewards program with accomplishments, leaderboards, and real-time feedback to motivate your customers to interact with your brand and train your employees to deal with difficult situations while assisting customers.

The Upshot.ai Advantage

Upshot.ai is an omnichannel, user engagement, and gamification platform that helps digital product owners and marketers improve product adoption and conversions.

With Upshot.ai, eCommerce, finance, ed-tech, travel, and healthcare firms can drive mobile app engagement. It can provide personalized insights, actionable recommendations, and contextual nudges designed to deepen its relationship with its users.

Book a demo of the most comprehensive user engagement and gamification platform to achieve your digital product goals. Join our communities for more insights, guides, and best practices that keep you updated with proven strategies and tips to supercharge your campaigns.

Gamification: How Can It Help Travel-hospitality Grow Economies

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