A Sightseeing Planning Support System with Gamification

Abstract

In recent years, as there has been a major change in the necessity and importance of sightseeing information, a platform to provide real-time sightseeing information according to the ever-changing circumstances is necessary. Additionally, it is effective to adopt gamification to increase users' motivation to continuously utilize the system in order to provide them with more information. In the present study, in order to support users' enjoyment in creating efficient and pleasant sightseeing plans, the system that incorporates gamification to increase motivation was developed combining with web-geographic information systems (Web-GIS) and sightseeing planning and sharing system. The system was operated over a period of 2 weeks in Chofu City, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. Based on the results of a questionnaire survey for 51 users, though the operability of the 3 main functions incorporated with motivation by gamification was rated lower than those of the 2 basic functions, their usefulness was highly rated. Based on the results of the access log analysis, it was effective to design the system so that the same functions can be used regardless of the type of information terminal. Additionally, it was evident that the continuous utilization of the system could increase the number of sightseeing plans created by the users.

Tourism Support System to Utilize Virtual Reality Space Reflecting Dynamic Information in Real Time

“…Regarding (1) studies related to tourism planning support systems using Web-GIS, Kurata (2012) [14], Kurata et al, (2015) [15], Zhuang et al, (2015) [16], García-Palomares et al, (2015) [17], Sugimoto (2018) [18], Kaufmann et al, (2018) [19] and Hirota et al, (2019) [20] created tourism potential maps that displayed areas with high tourism potential on the digital maps of Web-GIS, quantifying tourist destination highlights using data extracted from photo-sharing sites and social media. Fajuyigbe et al, (2007) [21], Chang et al, (2011) [22], Singh et al, (2011) [23], Masron et al, (2015Masron et al, ( , 2016 [24,25], Bali et al, (2016) [26], Itou et al, (2018) [27], Ikizawa-Naitou et al, (2020) [9] and Koga et al, (2021) [28] developed tourism support systems that displayed various information concerning tourist attractions and routes on the digital maps of Web-GIS [9,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. In this academic field, it was revealed the necessity of having administrators update the information concerning the operation target area, as users could not plan to visit sightseeing spots that had not been saved to the databases of the systems.…”

“…Regarding (4) studies related to systems utilizing social media, Yamada et al, (2013) [57], Ishino (2014) [58], Yang et al, (2015) [59], Yamamoto et al, (2017) [60], Yoon et al, (2018) [61], Yamamoto et al, (2021) [62] and Yamada et al, (2022) [63] developed automatic web-based real time service systems that extracted necessary information from submissions on social media and transmitted it to users. Kusmawan et al, (2014) [64], Sato et al, (2015) [65], Kwak et al, (2016) [66], Kawai et al, (2018) [67], Tran et al, (2022) [68] and Fujihara (2020) [69] utilized location-based SNS to develop original systems that predicted and visualized the congestion for any location and area specified by users.…”

On-Foot Content Tourism Support System in Urban Tourist Destinations of Japan

“…Hidaka et al [23] developed an on-site trip planning support system adopting dynamic information concerning sightseeing spots in addition to tourist' preferences and profiles. Koga et al [24] developed a sightseeing planning support system that incorporates gamification to increase motivation.…”