Gamification: A Development and Promotion Tool for Brasov Tourist Destination

One of the new trends present in mobile marketing strategies, gamification, becomes an attractive initiative to bring tourists to the level of a destination, by creating pleasant experiences for tourists, through games and interesting activities that can be carried out in that respective destination. The aim of the paper is to identify the necessity and the usefulness of implementing gamification within the online tourism promotion application in Brasov County: Brasov Tourism App. The application provides information about the attractions, tourist sights and events taking place in Brasov County and its surroundings. In this respect, a qualitative marketing research was conducted. The results of the study highlighted the fact that the implementation of the gamification functionality, within the online promotion application, leads to raising the degree of attractiveness of the tourist destination. The results are useful both for the tour operators that develop tourism products based on capitalizing on cultural, natural and gastronomic heritage, but also for the managers of the tourist destination. The paper also offers suggestions regarding future research directions.