Hello Kitty Tourism App Highlights Possibilities for Gamified Travel

So I’ve been enjoying a weekend vacation of sorts, having escaped Tokyo for a few days for a slightly slower pace down in Kyoto and Nara. And while I’ve been pretty much disconnected for the entire time save for the occasional online photo dump, I did get a kick out of this new Visit Japan with Hello Kitty iPhone application from the Japan National Tourism Agency. And it prompted me to think about possible ways to gamify tourism.

The application, in addition to providing various information about common tourist attractions nationwide, comes with a location-based augmented reality function that lets you take photos with the uber-cute Japanese icon. This function, depending on your location in Japan, will let you take a photo with one of the many locally-themed Hello Kitty graphics overlaid on your travel photo (see right for the apps screenshot from iTunes).

Speaking of ‘virtually,’ I should note that if you aren’t doing a nationwide tour of Japan (and just doing a trip to one or two places, as I was), then this app is virtually useless because you won’t use it more than a few times.

Could use a sprinkle of social

But there are a lot of opportunities to build on this notion, if a social layer is added.

I really like this location-based collection mechanism, especially if we look at the success that Japanese social game companies have had with card collection/battle games. I can’t help but think back to a conversation I once had with Tonchidot’s Takehiro Iguchi (of Sekai Camera fame) who posited that it would be very cool to one day create a sort of augmented reality Pokemon social game. Players could travel to different places and collect rare Pokemon and then use them as part of their game rather than just use them as badges like with this Hello Kitty app. Such a strategy is probably not the best if you’re limited to just Hello Kitty as a character, but for other franchises — like Pokemon especially — it could be done. Some developers have tried it already in fact, though they were not official.

Photo: entertainment.wikia.com

If only Nintendo, who owns the Pokemon franchise, was more open to bringing its IP onto new platforms…

The notion of gamifying tourism is not a super new idea, and I’m sure there are lots of examples out there of companies who have done it well.

We already saw Japan-based Colopl incorporate such a location-based gaming feature, but I really hope that we see more companies try to do this in the future. Ideally tourism organizations like the JNTA can get involved, and promote Japan in a way that’s not only fun and exciting, but appropriately geeky!