Gamification and Storytelling Enhancing Successful Wine and Food Tourism Products

This research focuses on the proposed tourism offer gamification and storytelling in the Douro region. Currently, the use of games in the tourism sector is beginning to be a strategy applied in several destinations. However, the application of gamification to the tourism sector has not always been successful. There are shortcomings in travelers’ engagement due to the underestimation of tourism facts/events or resources of the regions. The main objective is to combine gambling with storytelling as part of wine and food tourism, to ensure greater tourist involvement. Gamification associated with storytelling can disseminate and enhance the tourism offer in a region, creating value in tourism experience. Considering the research methodology, it was considered relevant to implement a qualitative approach, using a focus group interview script, with residents, as well as the use of semi-structured interviews applied to Farms and the Douro Museum. The main results highlight the development of the region’s tourism resources, which are crucial in a process of international promotion, increasing tourism demand by proposing a game as a driver of tourism and gambling associated with storytelling, and a key element in involving the player, telling the story, and spreading the word about the destination. Studies and projects dealing with gamification and storytelling in tourism are unknown, particularly in low-density inland destinations, being crucial to propose projects on this topic, suitable to similar destination typologies.