Abstract

The increased attachment of the public to technologies specially as a post-pandemic aftermath has led to technological changes and the way tourism businesses market to travellers. One major change is the use of smartphones among travellers, and their affection and familiarity with mobile functions such as smartphones, mobile applications, mobile games and the implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) in the technology. Insights into the development of mobile technology through the example of smartphones, led to the evolution of trends such as AR and mobile games which results affected the tourism industry and tourism locations. Mobile AR game technology is still in its infancy, and the aim of this chapter is to investigate the phenomenon and uses the example of Pokémon Go to help explain tourists’ behaviour and travel patterns. Concepts such as smartphones, AR and mobile games are explored in the context that they justified the design and development of games such as Pokémon Go. The case of Pokémon Go proves that an AR location-based mobile game can influence gaming travellers (now defined as Go Tourists) decisions to visit certain destinations.

Keywords

Tourism, Smartphones, Mobile Games, Augmented Reality, Pokémon Go, Game Tourist

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a paradigmatic shift in tourist behaviour and is forcing the industry toward transformation (Miao, Fu, Kim & Zhang et al., 2021). The increased attachment of the public to technologies during the pandemic has led to technological changes to the way tourism businesses market to travellers. One major change is the use of smartphones among travellers (Aluri, 2017), and the mobile functions they offer such as mobile applications, mobile games and the implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) in the technology. Nowadays technology-savvy tourists increasingly travel with various technologies, such as smartphones, mobile phones, tablets and laptops, using them, for example, to browse the internet and pre-check into their hotel rooms. (Parapanos & Michopoulou, 2022; Morosan & DeFranco, 2016). Mobile technology and its associated business ecosystems, are characterized by:

1. ubiquity (ability to use a smartphone anywhere),
2. personalization (making something identifiable as belonging to a particular person)
3. portability (ability to be easily carried or moved anywhere)
4. convenience (being useful, easy, or suitable for someone) (Morosan, 2018)

This in turn is changing tourists’ behaviour creating new forms of mobilities and new types of tourists. These mobile technologies ensure access to information is fast and available from almost anywhere, at any time, so making it possible to deliver this information to more users and forcing business to develop new strategies to deliver their products and services to any part of the world in the shortest time (Yılmaz & Olgaç, 2016). At the same time, tourism businesses can also market complementary products and services by delivering information to motivate behaviour during the consumers’ shopping process. For example, a travel company posting their recent activities on a mobile application, such as TripAdvisor, can immediately learn what tourists need and how they can react to new offers with the help of targetted mobile communications (Yılmaz & Olgaç, 2016).

The tourism sector is, therefore, facing a growing need to incorporate modern technologies, with AR becoming a useful medium as it provides prospective users with additional information about destinations before, during and post travel (Maaiah, Al-Shorman, Alananzeh & Al-Badarneh, 2019). Mobile devices through applications introduce both convenience and easiness to contemporary travellers, showcasing that with mobile technology it is possible to complete a variety of transactions such as shopping on-the-go for travel-related products or services (Ozturk, Bilgihan, Nusair & Okumus, 2016). Even though tourism researchers and industry leaders recognized the potential application of AR in tourism from 2000 (Jingen & Elliot, 2021), AR technology has only recently been available to the mainstream consumer (Yung & Khoo-Lattimore, 2019), probably linked to the popularity of smartphones and the mobile gaming opportunities available to a larger number of people (Layland, Stone, Mueller & Hodge, 2018). The tourism industry is one of the most significand contributors to the GDP for many countries globally (Akhtar, Khan, Mahroof, Ashraf, Hashmi, Khan & Hishan, 2021). The evolution of technologies such as mobile applications with AR presents challenges and opportunities for these destinations as they can alter tourists’ patterns of behaviour. By investigating factors influencing those changing patterns through the technologies would help destinations capitalise on the phenomenon and add to that GDP. Although research in understanding tourism innovations has been gaining momentum, there is a latent demand for more substantive and theory-based research into user experience and behaviour (Yung & Khoo-Lattimore, 2019).

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the phenomenon of mobile AR technology and uses the example of Pokémon Go to help explain tourists’ behaviour and travel patterns. Concepts such as smartphones, AR and mobile games are explored in the context that they justified (financially) the design and development of games such as Pokémon Go. The introduction of Pokémon Go has multiple implications for the tourism industry due to the influence on the mobility of a certain demographic group, and the impact of the game on influencing behaviour and therefore actions. The game is a successful example of mobile games apps (Rauschnabel, Rossmann & tom Dieck, 2017; Woods, 2021; Jingen & Elliot, 2021), and as such justifies exploring the implications of the phenomenon for, and on, the mobility of tourists. The chapter recognises the new market of ‘mobile gamers tourists’ as a new demographic developed in relation to the addition of AR in location-based games. Destinations could consider the addition of virtual artifacts in important locations to promote its history or importance. Since the Pokémon Go mobile game has successfully in increasing and directing visitors’ mobility, it validates it’s us as an example for this new tourism demographic named ‘Go Tourist’. 

Literature Review

Tourists as users of new technologies (such as smartphones), has already influenced changes in in several activities such as pre-checking into their hotel rooms or browsing for products and submitting reviews (Parapanos & Michopoulou, 2022). These are specially developed programs adapted for use on mobile devices, with the aim of functionality of the web service, computer applications, as well as making original ideas available to users of those mobile devices. Among the apps, mobile instant messaging apps (such as WhatsApp, LINE, Instagram and Facebook Messenger) are increasingly popular and more widely used, with statistics showing that in 2016 these apps had 1.58 billion users and an estimated figure rising to 2.48 billion users in 2017 (Tseng, Pham, Cheng & Teng, 2018). Mobile games have, therefore, emerged as the next biggest app concept alongside (Feijoo, Gómez-Barroso, Aguado & Ramos, 2012), social networks. One of the reasons for the rise of mobile games apps is the evolution of new technology, and increased data capacity in devices. leading to mobile devices including mobile applications with AR functions (Rauschnabel et al., 2017), that in turn increasing the popularity and profitability of making mobile games even more popular. This example of mobile game apps with AR technology (Pokémon Go) provides new opportunities and has multiple implications for the industry.

Smartphones

The four characteristics associated with the business ecosystem (ubiquity, personalization, portability and convenience) highlight the conceptual significance of mobility and the mobile market. Factors historically influencing this mobile market are obviously the evolution of wireless devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, and the growth of wireless networks to connect these devices to the web (Laudon & Traver, 2017). The increasing value of mobility and the on-the-go apps (Chun-Chi, Yu-San & Yu-Lun, 2017) allowing users to consume services anytime and ‘any place’. Smartphones used for instant marketing research or location-based promotion, transformed mobile phones into a multi-functional device incorporating phone, text and video as standard, providing yet more marketing opportunities (Gay, Charlesworth & Esen, 2007). Travel applications have become the seventh most downloaded applications, with 60% of mobile device users across the globe downloading them onto their devices, and 45% of them frequently utilising these applications to organise trips (Douglas, 2019). This suggests the importance of mobile applications to tourism and hospitality organizations based on the demand for consumers to access activities on the go. In response to the potential market opportunities of electronic and mobile commerce, most tourism suppliers established business Web sites and/or smartphone applications to publicize and distribute their products/services to consumers (Law, Leung & Fong, 2014).

This addiction of users with the platforms provides potential for constant collection of data from individuals based on actual and previous preferences and activities. This in turn gives opportunities for the provider to analyse those previous behavioural patterns and to segment the market and identify future potential product demand. For example, the widespread use of smartphones and the accessibility of information services now have the potential to change the entire travel experience. This, for example, by altering the nature and role of planning one’s travel, and revolutionizing the very meaning of tourism, and transforming both tourists and places (Kim & Law, 2015). This mobile “superstorm” has dramatically changed tourist behaviours and business processes in the field of hospitality and tourism, so ascribing a revolutionized meaning to the latter (Law, Chan & Wang, 2018). As mobile devices assist in searching for information, making on-site choices and sharing experiences they allow travellers to delay choices before, during and after their trip. (Douglas, 2019). This has, to some extent, taken some of the stress out of the trip. This was re-enforced during and after the Covid-19 outbreak where technological development significantly inspired many fields and commercial sectors (Akhtar et al., 2021). In addition, it offers mobile recommendations, which can change the tourist experiences completely altering behaviours, information requirements, decision-making, sharing and documenting. Mobile apps play a key role in the distribution of the rooms, but also establishing and strengthening customer relationships and brand loyalty (Ozturk et al., 2016). It can ‘help’ manipulating behaviour and affect tourism movement by using live data from multiple uses of the software.

Adopting such technologies alone, however, may not in itself lead to competitive advantage (Kim & Law, 2015) unless there is investment by hotels and destinations to ensure engagement with the end users. There is earlier validation that does show that the advances in the digital era and the increased coverage of the internet have helped electronic games succeed and show continued growth profiles (Brito, Pinochet, Lopes & de Oliveira, 2018). Games are breaking down the traditional boundaries in which they were confined (Rapp, 2018). The popularity of video games in the past decade, empowered by the rapid development of smartphones, have allowed mobile experiences accessed by vibrant on-site communications, to make gaming popular and attractive to a broader group of consumers (Xu, Buhalis & Weber, 2017). For example, 95% of Australian adolescents have access to at least one game-equipped device in their home such as a tablet, smartphone or personal computer (PC) (Smith, Gradisar & King, 2015). For the year 2021 Mintel estimated that the mobile gaming market was worth £2.0bn, rising from £1.5bn the year before, representing a 33% increase in value (Mintel 2021).

Mobile Games

The ‘average’ video game player has been engaged with the activity over several years, with, for example, leading more people from different age groups engaging with playing games. In their research (Smith et al., 2015) found that Australian adolescents play computer games anywhere between 2 and 18 hours per week. Yet video games are not only for adolescents. More than 183 million people, (or 49%) of adults in America, play video games (Rogers, 2017), showing that video games attract and engage individuals at any stage of their life. It is admitted that gaming could be very addictive since the activity allows gamers to reach higher goals, by scoring points against each other, and gaining either material or non-material rewards. This includes inclusion to a hall of honour that are recognised as e key motivating factors of individuals (Xu et al., 2017). Since 2011, it was found that people were already spending an average of three billion hours a week gaming with the number increasing exponentially through the years (Brito et al., 2018). Gamers play some kind of video game for over 15 hours a week, where non-gamers play video games less than 4 hours (Schenk, Lech & Suchan, 2017). Furthermore, 97% teenagers in the USA play video games with the gaming industry reporting revenue of $12 billion per year (Sajid, Cao, Brohi & Sajid, 2018). 

Mobile gaming potentials has grown since 2007 in parallel with the introduction of the first wave of smartphones, and the availability of broadband connections (Feijoo et al., 2012), resulting in a major increase of the game application industry (Zheng, 2020). This led in turn to increase in both academic and practitioner literature (Cheng, Greenwood & Pavlou, 2022). Video games have become a multi-billion-dollar media industry, reporting profits of more than the movie and music industries combined (Bowman, Kowert & Cohen, 2015). Indeed, a report compares video game revenue with other well-known features of the entertainment industries (such as movie and book industries) showing that the blockbuster movie of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” set a box office record by earning $169m in revenue during its opening weekend in 2011, and the book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” generated $220m in the first 24 hours of release. In comparison in the same year, a game called “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” eclipsed these records, raising $400m in revenue on the first day (Cox, 2014). The video game generated $1bn in revenue within the first 16 days, narrowly overcoming the previous entertainment record set in 2009 by the film “Avatar” within the first 17 days of release (Cox, 2014).

Gaming is a volunteer activity; hence gamers will return only if their previous experience was enjoyable (Kim, Oh, Yang & Kim, 2009), adding pressure to game developers to create products that have more usable user interfaces, better graphics and sound to provide a more appealing and satisfying gameplay experience than their competitors. As a result, in terms of technological layers the gaming industry has to improve rapidly and continually since the gaming industry is constantly forced to adapt and create new aesthetically attractive content to re-enforce engagement with the players. An emerging trend in video gaming is the movement towards device-agnostic games. These features allow gamers to play in a flexible way as they can suspend the game at anytime and anywhere and then restart later as desired (Mulyawan & Rafdinal, 2021).

Mobile games are a prime example of a successful mobile application and demonstrate the increasing range of platforms for the media and entertainment industries (Feijoo et al., 2012). In 2016, Apple’s “App Store” and Google’s “Google Play” announced that 19.2 billion mobile games were downloaded in that year (Pappas, Mikalef, Giannakos & Kourouthanassis, 2019).  The same year, iPhone users spent on average $40 per device on premium applications, an increase from 2015, with mobile games dominating consumer spending (Pappas et al., 2019). In 2018 Apple Store and Google Play both announced increases in numbers to 21.8 billion with forecasts for continued growth in the future (Mulyawan & Rafdinal, 2021). The same report by Mulyawan and Rafdinal (2021) identified that the success was down to mobile game applications having new features, such as chat rooms, stream quality, commentary features, player characteristics, event attractiveness, and stream traits, providing gamers with a more flexible way to play mobile games.

Pokémon Go

The tourism sector is facing a growing requirement to incorporate modern technologies such as games, with AR becoming a useful medium as it provides prospective users with additional information about destinations before and during travel (Maaiah et al., 2019). A tourist was characterized as a person with little or no knowledge of the environment according to (McKercher & du Cros, 2003), encountering the unfamiliar (Woods, 2021), or looking for the most memorable experience. Destination managers have enabled immersive technologies such as AR to enhance tourists’ memorable experiences (Loureiro, Guerreiro & Ali, 2020), by blending the physical with the virtual world. The increasing ubiquity of the smart phone has undoubtedly paved the way for the utilizing of technological intermediation in tourism, notably in the case of AR (Maaiah et al., 2019). It is argued that tourists are happy to escape into known simulated experiences as for example the Disneyland (totally absorbed into alternative realities), and similarly AR application into tourism experiences pushes this alternate reality one step further (Yung & Khoo-Lattimore, 2019).

AR is defined as the fusion of any digital information with physical world settings (Layland et al., 2018). Using AR provides tourists with different experiences, since it enables the enhancement of a real-world environment using computer technologies through their mobile devices (Woods, 2021). This develops a digital extension of a person’s senses of sight and hearing usually accessed via smart glasses, tablets and mobile phones (Jingen & Elliot, 2021). In the context of tourism, it is defined as a complex construct involving the emotions, feelings, knowledge and skills resulting from the perception, processing and interaction with virtual information that is merged with the real physical world surrounding the tourist (Maaiah et al., 2019). This technology creates experiences where a real environment is enhanced by additional layers of virtual elements that can include information and images (Williams & Slak-Valek, 2019). For tourists this means they can observe both the physical world and virtual objects overlaid on the real world (Loureiro et al., 2020). For example, indoor tourist experiences enhanced with AR are developed in museums, art galleries, and indoor theme parks by overlaying exhibits with additional information through touchscreen displays, smart phones, and/or wearable devices (Maaiah et al., 2019). Outdoor uses of AR are limited and mostly based on gaming mobile applications. The advantages of mobile games with the inclusion of AR in the outdoor environment include the use of the global positioning system and other technologies in mobile phones to supplement the appearance of the real-world with game-related objects (Williams & Slak-Valek, 2019). Pokémon Go game is the most popular example of a game with this function.

AR blended in mobile apps has been available since 2010, but their use was not widespread, until the release of Pokémon Go in 2016 which made the app a global and social phenomenon (Aluri, 2017; Jingen & Elliot, 2021). Pokémon Go being the frontrunner bridging the gap between video games and physical space introduced a hybridized ecology where elements of both physical and digital spaces interact in a single environment (Layland et al., 2018). Users (either called tourists or gamers) use their mobile device to overlay digital play onto physical spaces as viewed through their mobile device (Layland et al., 2018). This function provides multiple opportunities for the destinations. For example, virtual game objects can be strategically positioned around historical physical artifacts (status, monuments) in certain locations so encouraging the user (game tourist), to learn more about the history of a destination. The function also provides further opportunities for the local business in these areas since it potentially attracts new demographics of visitors to the location. Since its launch in 2016, Pokémon Go has achieved an unprecedented degree of popularity (not unexpected as it was the first), boasting millions of active players around the world (Woods, 2021), and increasing Nintendo’s market value by $9 billion in 5 days, and attracting 21 million daily active users (Aluri, 2017). Pokémon Go became the top grossing application within 13 hours of its release in the United States and quickly outranked popular games such as Candy Crush, Clash Royale and apps such as Tinder in active daily users (Layland et al., 2018).

The popularity of Pokémon Go could be a result of being promoted as the first ever successful location-based game adding AR technology (Hjorth & Richardson, 2017). The game was the first to promote the element of exploration in the virtual world since gamers had to navigate their avatar on the map to find objects and fulfil their tasks. For the purposes of Pokémon Go app players must make significant efforts to capture Pokémon in the real world and learn from fellow players at Pokéstops and Gyms (Williams & Slak-Valek, 2019). Hence, the game still capitalises on the element of exploration navigating users in the physical world to capture artifacts and obtain objects (Davies, 2020). Gamers can only capture a Pokémon or other game objects in the physical environment when that is close to them (Woods, 2021), hence they physically must move in a real-world environment instead of the virtual map. Within this hybrid reality, users are required to move through physical space as they tag, collect, trade, and battle for digital artefacts and player achievements, accessing a microworld through their smartphone via the digital overlay of game objects and virtual locations across the actual environment (Hjorth & Richardson, 2017). The opportunities this task creates for the tourism industry are exciting. To complete tasks in the game users (as gamers) must travel around to collect artifacts from a destination which transforms them into tourists. Considering that a tourist is a person that may have limited knowledge of the destination (Parapanos & Michopoulou, 2018), it allows certain areas to provide that knowledge. Some destinations have worked together with the game to ensure that a museum or a gallery is transformed into a Pokéstop in the game world to motivate users to visit certain les popular locations with limited visitations in the past. By adding these artifacts into the virtual world, the game combines the movements of the users with the characteristics of game tourists with navigating them into areas with significance for the destination.

The success of the game could also be a result of the nostalgic feelings for the user (Harborth & Pape, 2020). The Pokémon games was designed for a young player hunched over a small screen for uninterrupted hours (Keogh, 2017). The experience has become itself a nostalgia for those who grew up playing the games (Keogh, 2017). These young players g have now become adults who can afford to travel around the world whilst spending hours in front of a different small screen, that being their smartphone. Young explorers could only discover areas within the digital environment as developed by the game designers but led to the feeling of exploration and creating that need for adventure. Pokémon Go now breaks those rules allowing those young digital explorers to become real-life explorers, whilst enhancing the nostalgic feelings for the user. Similarly, other games from the past could benefit moving from the digital world to the new hybrid environment of AR mobile applications. Popular games such as Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy, Call of Duty and others could transfer their gameplay in the world of Go and capitalise on the nostalgic feelings of their original players. As a result, there could be   multiple applications and users that cloud increase the demand for visiting destinations and and potentially influencing their behaviour within those destinations. This activity now means that in the market there is a new target group called ‘gamer tourists’ or ‘Go Tourist’ or in this case ‘Pokémon Go Tourists’.

Methodology

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the phenomenon of mobile AR technology and uses the example of Pokémon Go to help explain tourists’ behaviour and travel patterns. To achieve the aim this chapter is looking into the literature of concepts such as smartphones, mobile games and the literature and previous publications on the topic of Pokémon Go. This chapter considers on providing a base line of information to gain an overview of the technological changes developed altering the way tourism businesses market to travellers, using data from secondary sources to explore phenomena of mobile AR technology and uses the example of Pokémon Go to help explain tourists’ behaviour and travel patterns. Considering that the base of this chapter focuses on the Pokémon Go concept, searching for articles on the Universities online library (OneSearch Library), used the keywords Pokémon Go, from 2017 to current.

Table 2.1. Articles using the Pokémon Go keyword

This study aims to contribute to the debate on tourism and new forms of mobilities and is using the phenomenon of Pokémon Go mobile application to showcase the entrance of a new tourist market motivated by gaming activities. The table above presents the primary articles this chapter was focused on and the sequence of examined. Firstly, the research focused on Pokémon Go in the tourism context, then moved on the context of technology to examine evolutions that helped or affected the growth of the phenomenon and finally behaviours of users to examine the influence of the game towards movement to destinations. The outcome of the above articles contributed on the structure of the literature review and the topics of smartphones, mobile games and Pokémon Go.

Results-Discussion

Results of this chapter reveal that looking at the aftermath of the evolution of certain technologies such as: smartphones, mobile games and the implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) in the technology have led to the introduction a new tourist market motivated from travelling and visit destinations for gaming opportunities. Looking at the success of the example of Pokémon Go it was decided to define this market as Go Tourist. This section will introduce a definition for the gamer tourist and look at the outcome of this new market and implications for the tourism industry.

Go Tourist

Gaming is becoming a tool used by organizations within the tourism sector, for example developing marketing strategies and creating dynamic engagement with users (Xu, Tian, Buhalis, Weber & Zhang, 2016). This new approach is helping tourism to promote destinations, by providing organizations and destination marketers with an opportunity to create informative and entertaining settings for successful brand awareness, interaction, and communication, by implementing gaming activities (Xu et al., 2016). Mobile gaming apps have created a new eco-system providing a platform for the gaming landscapes, with the inclusion of technologies such as AR, making gamers and even non-gamers an interested and attractive market (Aluri, 2017). One of the main examples of this functionality of AR is, as seen, Pokémon Go which can ‘guide’ tourist experiences (Aluri, 2017; Woods, 2021). Woods (2021) states that through the addition of mobile gameplay, tourism can incorporate the element of fun for the visitors by providing a way of experiencing unfamiliar environments. Before Pokémon Go the same company developed another AR video game called Ingress, where players interact with “portals” in proximity to the player’s real-world location. These portals are physical points of interest such as historic buildings, statues and monuments (like Pokémon Go), which in the game are used as elements of a science fiction backstory along with a continuous open narrative. One year later in 2019, the same company was also responsible for the release of another AR mobile game called Harry Potter: Wizarding World. The game follows the same mindset with players being able to view gameplay via a smartphone within the hybrid environment of the virtual and physical world. The game allows users to fight against mythical beasts from the Harry Potter and the Fantastic Beasts company. None of the other two games has had such an impact as Pokémon Go, with the Harry Potter: Wizarding World app shut down on the 31st of January 2022. 

Unlike the other two games, Pokémon Go has influenced and altered users’ behaviour, with examples of organized events as a collaborate activity between the game and destinations, but also in an individual and spontaneous level where tourists visited a destination partly for gameplay activities. Individuals who have moved locations for the purposes of a gameplay activity would be called game tourists and considering the success of the Pokémon Go game against the other two the term Go Tourist was introduced. Go Tourist is defined as ‘the individual who would visit a destination part of an AR world for the purposes of a mobile gaming activity’.

Figure 2.1. The evolution of Go Tourist

Games can capitalize on the movement of people in the physical world to such an extent that they can encourage, and even force Go Tourists to locations of the game’s choice. To exploit this opportunity the company at the early stages of the game announced that some Pokémon (game artifacts), will only be available in certain locations also called “regional” Pokémon. For example, at the beginning of the game each continent (region) had a unique Pokémon, which ultimately asked gamers to travel to each continent looking for the artifact to complete the collection. That Pokémon is unique and represents something culturally significant from the area. For example, a Pokémon looking like a kangaroo was only found in Australia and a Pokémon called Mr. Mime was only found in the Europe. Considering that the guiding logic of Pokémon Go is to “catch them all”, it means that players must move through their neighbourhoods and cities, different landscapes or even countries and continents looking for Pokémon on their map, (Woods, 2021), to fulfil the aim of the game. In this essence the game enforces users to travel around the world to collect the artifacts. Similarly, activities could be designed in the future in collaboration between games and destinations to navigate Go Tourists around the world.

Several tourism businesses have already embraced the concept. For example, attractions such as the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, the National Park Service and Denver Zoo have created events, promotions and educational classes using Pokémon Go as a guide, and they found that it increased revenue and public attention, and drew more visitors, especially young travellers (Aluri, 2017). Additionally, some travel agencies, theme parks and tour companies have successfully created personalized trips, guides and tours for travellers using the Pokémon Go game as a platform and found that travellers showed more interest in visiting these attractions and destinations (Aluri, 2017). This shows that the tourism industry has been able in the recent years to encourage Go Tourists to visit certain areas and increase the profile of the location using games as a marketing tool. It suggests that destinations should work closely with the gaming industry to develop this kind of games promotion for specific their destinations and encourage those Go Tourists to visit specific locations chosen by the host and not particularly the guest. This could further be of use in de-marketing specific locations because of ‘overtourism,’ that show negative socio-economic and environmental impacts. This could be a hub and spoke strategy to get those visitors to destinations that need the extra economic benefits.

Playing AR location-based mobile games is overlaid onto the experience of navigating the city as a tourist. Artifacts are often linked to the main attractions, meaning to play the game is to navigate towards important objectives, and navigate towards these objectives means visiting tourist attractions. The map is then a virtual representation of the physical world and becomes a method of finding the way like any other navigation app. Wandering into the mixture of physical-virtual world provides the motivation and route needed to experience an unfamiliar place (Woods, 2021). Traditionally in the tourism industry, the travel and engagement with attractions within the destination are separate, but with AR games they are conjoined. In the case of Go Tourists, the gameplay elements are primary and the travel and engagement secondary. The game suggests new foci for travel and tourism which could be used by local, national, international destinations and attractions to engage the traveller who arrives first to play the game and second to experience the place and what it offers (Williams & Slak-Valek, 2019). Destinations have used the Pokémon Go before to draw people’s attention, capitalizing on the fact that players find self-identification and a sense of belonging in their participation. This is evidenced by Facebook fan pages attached to many different locations around the world and sold-out Pokémon Go Fest events in physical locations such as Dortmund (Germany) and Chicago (Illinois) (Williams & Slak-Valek, 2019). Go Tourists are likely to fall into these behaviour patterns and follow ‘meet ups’ in certain destinations to collect artifacts that would help them progress in the game depending on the scopes of the gameplay. Also, it allows them to socialise and exchange ideas, knowledge and experiences from the game. It can also encourage teamplay modes and collaborations or competitive modes and challenges. The collaboration between the game and the destination organising these activities would benefit both parts, since the game can provide activities and competition for multiple users and for the destination by providing a market for the local businesses.

Conclusion

Tourists’ decision and mobility are affected by both formal channels such as internet, advertising and sales promotion and informal channels of communication, which form stimulus inputs (Xu et al., 2016). Considering that the tourism industry is an experience industry the importance of using experiential information tools such as gaming in promotional stimuli for tourism marketing (Xu et al., 2016), could work as a competitive advantage for a destination. The case of Pokémon Go proves that an AR location-based mobile game can influence gaming travellers (now defined as Go Tourists) decisions to visit certain destinations. The study by Aluri (2017), offered real-life insights into the global phenomenon of the game and shed light on its usage among smartphone users, the overall user experience of the MAR app and intentions to use it as a travel guide. The study investigates the intentions to use Pokémon Go as a travel guide filling the gap in the industry literature, considering that several travel businesses are already using the app to provide a guide to travellers (Aluri, 2017).

Mobile AR game technology is still in its infancy (Trojan, 2016), and this chapter offers key insights into how the adoption of the Pokémon GO app or future mobile AR game apps offers opportunities for tourism destinations. Insights into the development of mobile technology through the example of smartphones, led to the evolution of trends such as AR and mobile games which results affected the tourism industry and tourism locations. The rise of Smart Tourism Destinations is a result of public access in technologies such as ubiquitous computing and Internet of Things (IoT), ubiquitous connectivity through Wi-Fi, cloud computing, mobile applications, near field communication (NFC), Augmented and Virtual Reality, integrated payment methods and social networks. These technologies take advantage of the need of people to be on-the-move and improve their lifestyle. Multiple mobile phone apps are emerging, including tourist-specific apps, travel and transport-related apps and social networking apps (Dickinson et al., 2014).

Integrating the different components of smartness provides managers with strategic tools to implement innovation within the smart tourism framework in a way that creates value for all stakeholders in the destination and the tourism industry in general (Boes, Buhalis & Inversini, 2016). Other technologies such as mixed reality applications have capitalised on the smart tourism framework benefiting from the rapidly evolving technological development to establish innovative medium channels and give new life to tourism (Bec, Schaffer & Timms, 2021). Mixed reality which presents the co-existence of the real and virtual worlds has been used as a tool to enhance immersive experience in tourism. Similarly, gaming can enhance immersive experiences and provide a technological tool for destination marketers to develop a medium creating such experiences and support dynamic interactions. For example, location-based games with the addition of AR can be a way of enhancing the experience at a destination for tourists through a game with the example of Pokémon Go as proof it works. Tourists can follow a list of recommendations given by a mobile game and can learn something about their environment by interacting with the environment collecting Pokémon or any other virtual materials the game is promoting. A tourist is rather despairingly referred to as a person who typically has “little or no knowledge of the environment” (Parapanos & Michopoulou, 2022), so using location based mobile games implementing the technology of AR allows the tourist to learn more about the local environment, help smart tourism destinations to promote the history of the location and create an emotional experience between the visitor and the location. Mobile AR game technology is still in its infancy (Trojan, 2016), and Pokémon Go is an example of technology influencing tourist movement. Considering the failure (Harry Potter: Wizarding World) or lack of impact (Ingress) from previous examples it should be mentioned that AR mobile games is a phenomenon worth empirical investigation and future research. Special note should be made on the introduction of more advanced technologies such as the metaverse and their impact on tourists’ behaviour and new forms of mobilities.