WTM Technology Enabling Travel Organised By IFITT 2013: A Throughout Successful Event
On November 4, 2013 the International Federation for Information Technology and Travel and Tourism (IFITT) hosted the fabulous event 'WTM Technology Enabling Travel' at the World Travel Market 2013. It was attended by a great number of people who wanted to understand the concept of gaming and its impact on the tourism experience.
- (1888PressRelease) November 07, 2013 - The event started with a workshop themed 'Gaming and Gamification in tourism: opening a new experience', which addressed the phenomenon's gamification and location-based games and introduced best practices in the tourism industry. Topics related to this issue included 'Augmented Reality Gaming: A new Paradigm for Tourist Experience', 'Location-based games for tourism', 'Gamification and Online Engagement' and 'Using Game Design Elements for Visitor Experience Enhancement'. These were introduced by representatives of tourism companies and organisations that have already found innovative approaches for incorporating gaming and gamification in their strategies, such as Hans Petter Aalmo from Visit Norway, Roman Rackwitz from Engaginglab and Mads Haahr from Haunted Planet.
The event concluded with the launch of IFITT's Digital Knowledge Bank by Professor Matthias Fuchs from European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR) at Mid-Sweden University. The IFITT Digital Knowledge Bank comprises the IFITT Digital Library, the IFITT eTourism Curriculum and a theme-specific Wikipedia called the IFITT eTourism Wikipedia. All these novelties are aimed at further disseminating the global knowledge about tourism and technology and can be accessed through the 'Resources' tab.
The event was attended by more than 200 people who wanted to learn how gaming can be applied in the tourism context and find out from leading experts in the field about current best practices and future opportunities of gaming for the tourism industry. Great interaction took place online as well as offline. Live tweets and Facebook updates kept the audience engaged while the speakers were happy to answer questions regarding their topics. All pictures of the event will be uploaded on the IFITT's Flickr Photostream, IFITT's Facebook page and the IFITT Website.
IFITT President Professor Dimitrios Buhalis says: "We were impressed by the great interest in the concept of gaming and gamification in tourism. We are convinced that these innovative approaches will drive opportunities for tourism organisations and destinations in terms of marketing, interpretation and customer experiences and we are looking forward for upcoming developments in that field."
The WTM Technology Enabling Travel event was part of the World Travel Market 2013 and took place on November 4, 2013 from 11.30 to 14:00 at the BTM Theatre in ExCel London.
For more information please contact: Professor Dimitrios Buhalis (IFITT President) at ifitt ( @ ) ifitt dot org or dbuhalis ( @ ) bournemouth dot ac.uk.
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