I love social media and especially the concept of Social Gaming. 63% of the US population now plays video games and this number is significantly higher in Asia. The average age of the gamer is 35 years old, 40% women, and half of them play games online one or more hours per week.
I was intrigued by the new game that the Marriott corporation just released! It’s called XplorSM . A cool thing about this game is that it was conceived by a group of Marriott employees from various departments, age groups and levels across the company. Talk about ideation! The team was lead by David A. Rodriguez who is the Executive Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer at Marriott and a true innovator!
OK! So the game helps you to visit New York City, Paris, Beijing, Dubai and Sao Paolo and win Marriott Rewards points along the way. And it helps when if you are like me, and find yourself sitting in airports waiting for a flight or lounging by the pool and looking for something to do.
XPLOR can be played on a coast to coast or intercontinental flight without an Internet connection once it’s downloaded. This is a key feature since most travelers and emerging consumers and employees, even if they have web connections, find it can get very expensive in international cities to connect.
The game is more like Call of Duty and other major adventure and sports game titles like Madden Football or Major League Baseball, and less like Angry Birds or Tetris where there is just one background and things moving around in the foreground. Just in the character creation area (before you start playing), there are several million possible combinations.
Download the game free and start travelling!: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xplor-by-marriott/id646951347?ls=1&mt=8:
I cannot wait to continue exploring! And I’d love to hear your thoughts on this game!!!
Airport waiting lounge is an apt place for the travel & hospitality industry to engage with the customers for this is the place where the traveler is relatively free and often bored too. Gaming could be used here for customer engagement, enhance customer satisfaction, build loyalty and also cross sell/upsell new things. Really interesting.
This is brilliant branding. Businesses gamifying to enhance and improve the end CX is smart marketing. Giving travellers customers something FUN to do while they wait/lounge is good thinking on Marriott’s part. That the concept was in-sourced from within makes it a social business win. My article on Gamification… The Fun Theory – http://mrsocial1.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/game-theory-when-gaming-meets-marketing.html?m=1