Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems

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Gamification in mobile applications: The case of

airports

Eleni G. Mantouka, Emmanouil N. Barmpounakis, Christina P. Milioti & Eleni

I. Vlahogianni

To cite this article: Eleni G. Mantouka, Emmanouil N. Barmpounakis, Christina P. Milioti & Eleni I.
Vlahogianni (2018): Gamification in mobile applications: The case of airports, Journal of Intelligent
Transportation Systems, DOI: 10.1080/15472450.2018.1473157

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15472450.2018.1473157

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JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
, VOL. , NO. , –
https://doi.org/./..

Gamification in mobile applications: The case of airports

Eleni G. Mantouka, Emmanouil N. Barmpounakis , Christina P. Milioti, and Eleni I. Vlahogianni
National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper examines the parameters that can lead to the acceptance of smartphone gamified appli- Received  May 
cations concerning the airport. A questionnaire survey was conducted, where travelers were asked to Revised  April 
express their needs and requirements, when accessing the airport or using its facilities. Logistic regres- Accepted  May 
sion methodology is used to analyze the acceptance of such applications and the willingness to pay KEYWORDS
for them. In addition, a multivariate probit model is developed to investigate the factors that affect the Airports; gamification; logit
frequent use of the application. Economic rewards appear to have a significant impact on the users’ models; probit models;
acceptability towards using a smartphone application for airports. Findings from the statistical mod- smartphone applications
elling show that people who travel rarely and those who would like to have assistance when at the
airport are more likely to use such an application. Furthermore, indoor navigation and information
about the airport’s services are important features of the application and the willingness to pay.

Introduction
With the recent and rapid advances in the aviation indus-
try, airports’ role has dramatically changed during the lat-
est years. Airports may have to compete with other air-
ports, sometimes even in the same region, to attract more
companies and thus passengers (Sidiropoulos et al., 2015;
Welch, Mishra, & Wang, 2015). Travelers are willing to
drive longer to access a larger airport in order to take
advantage of lower fares and improved airline services
(Lian & Rønnevik, 2011; Pels, Nijkamp, & Rietveld, 2000).
Moreover, airports are systems difficult to manage,
because they entail various sub-processes spread over
different locations. The demand of the various services
that the airport provides can vary according to the pas-
senger type (Bradley, 1998; Fodness & Murray, 2007).
Some classes of passengers demand instant access to the
available airport services and are sensitive to additional
delays caused by unexpected queue formation and lack of
proper navigation. Clemes, Gan, Kao, and Choong (2008)
found that passenger socio-demographic characteristics
have a significant impact on service quality expectations.
Passenger behavior and expectations of the airport ser-
vices depend also on the travel characteristics. Fourie and
Lubbe (2006) found that business travelers are influenced
by different service factors compared to leisure travelers.
As stated in (Papatheodorou & Lei, 2006) passengers trav-
elling for leisure purposes have more desire to buy goods
and/ or services at the airport. On the contrary, business
travelers tend to be more demanding in terms of service
CONTACT Eleni G. Mantouka, PhD Scholar elmant@central.ntua.gr
Transportation Planning and Engineering,  Iroon Polytechniou Str, Zografou Campus,   Athens Greece.
©  Taylor & Francis
quality than passengers travelling for leisure or other pur-
poses (Jiang & Zhang, 2016). Moreover, frequent travelers
are more likely to assign a lower rate of airport service sat-
isfaction in comparison to less frequent travelers (Bazerra
& Gomes, 2015). Mode used to reach the airport as well as
time spent to airport before departure, affect significantly
service expectations (Bazerra & Gomes, 2015; Milioti,
Karlaftis, & Akkogiounoglou, 2015). Access time and nav-
igation inside the airport are also considered significant
factors (especially for business passengers) that determine
airport choice and passengers’ satisfaction (Hess, Adler, &
Polak, 2007; Nghiêm-Phú & Suter, 2018).
The above-described preferences affect not only the
airport managers and authorities, but also travelers and
airlines. First, the travelers’ choice is based on many
aspects, including the ease of access to the airport, avail-
able modes, and available services at the airport site and
reduced delays (Jou, Hensher, & Hsu, 2011; Pels et al.,
2000; Pels, Nijkamp, & Rietveld, 2003). From the airlines’
point of view, such services are also important, since
customers’ satisfaction is closely related to the airport
services (Milioti et al., 2015). Many airlines have invested
in their mobile apps providing useful tools to their cus-
tomers; from helping them to check-in to or keep them
better informed, to in-flight entertainment (Liu & Law,
2013; Wang, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2010). A common
issue with such applications is that a traveler may end
up with a big number of applications installed in his/her
smartphone depending on the number of airlines he/she
National Technical University of Athens, School of Civil Engineering, Department of
2 E. G. MANTOUKA ET AL.
is traveling with. Obviously, this can be rather confusing
for some travelers, for example during connecting flights
with different airlines, since one application may provide
a service, which the other one is not.
The above-mentioned problem could be overcome by
an airport-centric application, which would allow trav-
elers to enjoy the same services despite the airline they
are travelling with, like real time information for access
from/to the airport, indoor-mapping, shopping incen-
tives etc. Although several smartphone applications exist
which assist both drivers and public transport users
by proving real-time information, suggestions and nav-
igation (Antoniou, Polydoropoulou, & Khattak, 2015;
Jariyasunant et al., 2015), such applications are few in
the case of airports. Nevertheless, there exist some air-
port indoor navigation apps, such as App in the Air
(https://www.appintheair.mobi/), which provides flight
information, updates on gate changes, weather, and delays
information, GateGuru (http://gateguru.com/), which
allows users to rate and comment on restaurants, shops
and services, etc., and iFly (https://www.iflygps.com/app),
which provides GPS terminal navigation and informa-
tion for more than 700 airports. Although the above
approaches can help travelers navigate easily inside air-
ports, their sole purpose is to provide information ser-
vices or buying services (for example parking). Such
applications are not giving incentives to users to improve
their airport experience, optimize their navigation inside
airport by making the right decisions, or other general
incentives for engage them into an efficient travel behav-
ior and experience related to accessing and moving inside
airports. In other words, such applications cannot assist
or persuade users to make informed decisions about their
individual trip or the airport authorities to manage the
users’ behavior and improve airport services and opera-
tions. Moreover, their sustainability in terms of long-term
use by travelers has not been fully investigated.
One of the latest marketing strategies and a rather
new concept in persuasive systems is Gamification, a
useful tool to trigger behavior change. Although the
term Gamification contains the word “game,” it refers to
the application of game-oriented design approaches and
game-inspired mechanics (for example point scoring,
leader boards, and methods to measure achievements)
to originally non-game contexts, such as transportation
and mobility (Montola, 2005; Zichermann & Cunning-
ham, 2011). An effective gamification framework is
based on a series of metrics to quantify the success
on a predetermined goal, which is achieved through a
set of tasks. Based on the metrics, users gain feedback
about their performance and achievements. To improve
performance, users may need to change their mobility
patterns and undertake different behavior or perform
alternative tasks. Therefore, Gamification may be seen
as a complementary soft tool to evoke a change in com-
muters’ behavior in a way that they have the feeling of
self-improvement, achieving goals and social recognition
(Vlahogianni & Barmpounakis, 2017). With the burst
in the smartphone market, one can find various typical
examples of gamified smart applications in numerous
aspects of everyday life, such as health, fitness, education
and finance. Typical examples of gamified applications are
Waze (https://www.waze.com/), a community-based traf-
fic and navigation app, Moovit (https://moovitapp.com/),
an app for finding the fastest and least crowded route
when using public transport, and Changers-CO2 fit
(https://changers.com/), an app to automatically measure
the commuters’ distance travelled and calculate his/her
carbon footprint depending on the mean of travel.
The integration of gamification to transportation
applications in based on the following concept: Citizens
are rarely aware of their mobility footprint, as well as
the effects of their choices with respect to the efficiency
of their travel patterns, as well as the sustainability of
the transportation system (Sloman, Cairns, & Goodwin,
2003). Providing them with means to gather, visualize,
and quantify their mobility characteristics is a critical step
towards improving their mobility choices (Jariyasunant
et al., 2015; McCall, Koenig, & Kracheel, 2013; Salomon
& Singer, 2014; Wells et al., 2014). The integration of
information and technology instruments with gamifica-
tion characteristics can enrich the users’ motivation and
long-term engagement to activities and behaviors, which
may improve their mobility profile.
In the case of airports, a successful gamified appli-
cation would both facilitate travelers’ experience at the
airport and optimize airport’s services. More specifically,
users would get personalized information concerning
their flights and needs, while airport’s managers would
not have to face passengers that could not get to their
gate on time or get lost. In order to achieve the above,
the application should include features, such as naviga-
tion to and from the airport, indoor mapping to different
points of interest, information about the airport’s services
and facilities as well as alerts and notifications. Moreover,
advanced traveler information system can provide a clear
insight on users’ needs and requirements especially by
gathering data from smartphones (Toledo & Beinhaker,
2006; Walker & Ben-Akiva, 1996).
To maximize the positive effects for both travelers and
system, it is important to encourage travelers’ participa-
tion to the above application. To this end, gamification
aspects should be introduced to the environment of the
app, such as point systems, badges, and reward for regular
users and economic benefits such as free tickets and dis-
count coupons. The involvement of the passengers with

the gamified application will optimize their experience at
the airport since the system will provide all the essential
information customized to the needs and requirements
of the user. Thus, passengers will be well informed, know
how to move around the airport, reach their gate on time,
and have access to all the available services of the airport.
The research gap that arises concerns the contribu-
tion of gamification in the acceptability of an application
and the selection of suitable gamification aspects for each
environment. Another interesting question is how gam-
ification can affect long-term use of the application. The
aim of this paper is to identify the parameters that would
attract travelers into using their smartphone for a gami-
fied airport experience. Through a questionnaire survey
we attempt to point out the type of information the cus-
tomer would like to have access to and the willingness
to pay for it. Furthermore, we investigate the factors that
affect long-term use and sustainability of such applica-
tions. Analyses are based on univariate logistic regression
and multivariate probit (MP) models.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows.
First, the questionnaire prepared for the purposes of the
research and all information concerning the question-
naire survey are presented. Then, the variables used in the
analysis, the statistics derived from the survey, and the
key elements of the methodology are described. Finally,
an analysis of the models that were developed and main
results and conclusions are presented.
Methodology
Questionnaire survey
The data used in this study were collected through a
questionnaire addressed to passengers departing from
the Athens International Airport. The questionnaire aims
to identify travelers’ profile and their views on a proposed
gamified airport application. In brief, a smartphone
application was conceptually designed with the aim to
facilitate the use of the airport services and make them
more enjoyable to travelers. The application provides
information on alternative ways of accessing the airport,
indoor mapping services and information about different
points of interest within the airport. Moreover, through
the app, users have the ability to get personalized infor-
mation for their flight and other information concerning
the services, which are provided by the airport. Finally,
gamification aspects are included to the application, such
as point scoring, badges and financial awards as a reward
for regular users. For example, using the airport services
through indoor mapping and providing feedback could
benefit users with virtual awards or points that could be
exchanged into discounts.
JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 3
The questionnaire has three parts and consists of 17
questions. The idea of the application was presented to
each respondent before completing the questionnaire.
The first part of the questionnaire includes four questions
regarding socioeconomic and demographic character-
istics of the respondents (gender, age, occupation, and
annual income). In the second part, respondents provide
information concerning their flight characteristics, such
as flight frequency, usual purpose and destination of
travel, way of obtaining tickets, and mode of transport
used to reach the airport. In the third part, travelers are
asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement with
six statements concerning their view on the usefulness
and acceptability of gamified airport applications. The
answers should be given in a 5-level Likert scale where
level 1 represents strongly agree and level 5 represents
strongly disagree. The willingness to pay and the factors
that may influence long-term use of such applications are
also examined in this part. A list of potential factors was
given to the respondents and they could choose any of
them. Some of the possible factors are indoor mapping
and personalized information, better way of spending
time at the airport, economic benefits, awareness and
self-improvement, alerts, and notifications.
The questionnaires were completed via the internet, as
well as via personal interviews. The field survey took place
at the Athens International Airport, and particularly at
the free access areas of the airport, where more than 500
travelers participated. The survey was in the form of short
interviews and the respondents were first informed about
the main functionalities of the application. The notion
of gamification was also introduced to the respondents
mainly through examples of its basic aspects. Then, inter-
viewers addressed the questions to the passengers and fill
in their answers to the questionnaire.
The survey lasted 5 weeks from November 16, 2015,
to December 14, 2015, during different hours of the day,
and respondents were chosen at random in order to
capture different population and trip characteristics. In
addition, about 250 individuals participated in the online
survey, which was conducted through the Google Forms
platform. The online platform was open from November
23 to December 13. Finally, 774 questionnaires have been
collected.
Questionnaire results
Tables 1 and 2 present statistics for selected variables of
each section of the questionnaire.
The survey has shown that the majority of the par-
ticipants travel less than 10 times per year (73%) and
especially for recreational reasons (61.1%). Another
interesting result is that more than 70% of the travelers
4 E. G. MANTOUKA ET AL.

Table . Statistics for selected variables related to the personal Table . Gender and age distribution of passengers of Athens
information. International Airport.
Personal information Frequency % Percentage of passengers Percentage of passengers
in whole  in November 
Gender
Male  .% Gender
Female  .% Male % %
Age Female % %
–  .% Age
–  .% – % %
–  .% – % %
–  .% – % %
–  .% – % %
>  .% – % %
Occupation > % %
Government employee  .%
Private employee  .%
Self-employee  .%
Retired  .% from the Airport’s statistics, in order to ensure the repre-
Unemployed  .% sentativeness of the sample. The actual percentage of each
Student  .%
Total annual personal income (€) age class are presented in Table 3. According to the Air-
<,  .% port’s statistics for the period of the survey, the majority
,–,  .%
,–,  .% of the passengers were young people, with the 70% being
,–,  .% up to 44 years old.
,–,  .%
>,  .%
A further statistical processing of the responses shows
that, the majority (79.5%) of the travelers claim that they
do not need assistance at the airport. However, 57% would
obtain their ticket from the internet (30.5% book their like to have some assistance from a smartphone applica-
ticket from the airline’s website, while 40.2% purchase tion. Although the 72% of the respondents are willing to
their ticket from a booking website). As far as the mode use the application, only the 35.2% of them intend to pay
used to reach the airport is concerned, the majority of the for such an application. Moreover, it appears that travelers
respondents accessed the airport by car (47.1%), followed consider as the most important reason for long-term use
by public transport (36.5%), and then by other means of the application notifications and alerts for unexpected
(16.4%). situations (67.6%) and economic benefits, such as free
It is noted that people aged up to 44 years old (77.2%) tickets and discount coupons (65.4%). Finally, the 35.6%
were mostly involved in the survey. That percentage was of the respondents would use systematically the applica-
compared with the actual age distribution, as derived tion for navigation and personalized information, while
the 38.9% would use it in order to better spend their time
Table . Statistics for selected variables related to the travel profile. at the airport.
Traveler’s profile Frequency % From the preliminary statistical analysis, the gamified
experience appears to have a significant impact on the
Flight frequency
Less than  a year ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% users’ acceptability towards using a smartphone applica-
Purpose of travel tion. Most of the respondents focused on the economic
Business ( if yes;  otherwise)  .%
Recreational ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% rewards, such as discounts or the point exchange system,
Studies ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% which could be explained by the fact that many of the
Various ( if yes;  otherwise)  .%
Destination of travel
respondents were students that choose to fly with low cost
Domestic ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% airlines in low budget trips. However, there were also trav-
Europe ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% elers that, although responded that they are not in need of
International ( if yes;  otherwise)  .%
Way of obtaining tickets any assistance at the airport, when the gamified concept
Airline’s website ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% of indoor navigation with personalized discounts, social
Booking website ( if yes;  otherwise)  .%
Travel agency ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% network integration, alerts and personalized information
Other way ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% was described, they stated that they would use the appli-
Access to the airport
car ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% cation to experience better services from the airport facil-
Urban transport ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% ities. Especially when it comes to providing alternatives
Other means ( if yes;  otherwise)  .%
Time spent at the airport per flight
during waiting for their next flight, the gamified concept
< hour ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% attracted a significant number of travelers. The impor-
– hours ( if yes;  otherwise)  .% tance of gamified concepts is further examined in the fol-
> hours ( if yes;  otherwise)  .%
lowing sections.

Univariate and multivariate statistical econometric
modelling
For the purpose of this study, classical models of statistical
analysis were developed. Logistic regression was used to
investigate the factors that affect the acceptance of the pro-
posed application as well as the willingness to pay for it.
An MP model was used to detect the specific parameters
that could lead to the long-term use of the application.
Logistic regression is one of the most commonly used
tools of applied econometrics and discrete data analysis
(Agresti, 1990). In binary logistic regression, the binary
response variable is related to a set of explanatory vari-
ables, which can be discrete and/or continuous. In this
paper, logistic regression is used for estimating the accept-
ability and the willingness to pay for the proposed gami-
fied application. The dependent variable represents pos-
itive (1 stands for Yes) or negative (0 stands for No)
responses to the question regarding acceptability of gami-
fied applications. Demographic and trip characteristics as
well as respondents’ perceptions were used as indepen-
dent variables.
The MP model has been used in transportation
research applications to analyze binary dependent vari-
ables that are very closely linked (Choo & Mokhtarian,
2008; Golob & Regan, 2002; Viswanathan, Goulias,
& Jovanis, 2000). This methodology is one form of
a correlated binary response regression model that
simultaneously estimates the influence of independent
variables on – more than one – dependent variables, and
allows for the error terms to be freely correlated.
The MP model was used to analyze the reasons for
which the respondents would choose to systematically use
such an application. Each dependent variable takes the
value 1 when the corresponding factor (reason for using
the gamified airport application) is important and 0 when
it is unimportant, per travelers’ perceptions.
The models’ efficiency is evaluated with respect to the
following measures:
r the accuracy (ACC) of the model, meaning the
percentage of the total cases that were predicted
correctly;
r the True Positive Rate (TPR) or sensitivity showing
how many of the overall possible users were pre-
dicted correctly (true positives);
r the True Negative Rate (TNR) or specificity, which
shows how many of the non-users were predicted
correctly (true negatives);
r the False Positive Rate (FPR), showing how many of
the possible users were not predicted correctly (false
positives);
r the False Negative Rate (FNR), showing how many
of the non-users were not predicted correctly (false
negatives);
JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 5
Table . Chi-square test results.
Two-tailed
Variables p-value
Acceptability of the application .
Willingness to pay .
Purpose of travel: business .
Purpose of travel: recreational .
Purpose of travel: studies .
Flight frequency less than  times per year .E-
Domestic travelling .
Travelers who would like to have assistance at the .E-
airport
Travelers who would like to get information about the .
airport’s services
Personalized travel information and indoor navigation .
Better way of spending time at the airport (shopping .
and VIP lounge)
Alerts and notifications about unexpected situations .
Economic benefits .
r the precision of the model, which shows how many
of the identified as users were predicted correctly;
r area under the ROC curve: ROC graph is a two-
dimensional graph in which TPR is plotted on the
vertical axis and FPR on the horizontal axis. The
larger the area under the ROC curve the better the
model developed.
Results
Analysis of airport and online sample
In order to investigate the correlation between the airport
and the online sample, statistical chi-square test was used.
Results show that there is a significant difference between
the two samples concerning the key variables of the sam-
ple. Table 4 presents the corresponding results. Therefore,
only the data collected through the field survey are used
for the development of the models.
Methodological approach
In order to analyze travelers’ perceptions regarding the
proposed gamified application, three discrete choice
models were developed. Binary logistic regression was
used to model the acceptability (Table 5) and the will-
ingness to pay (Table 6) of the smartphone application,
whereas an MP model was developed to analyze the per-
ceived benefits of this application according to passengers’
opinion (Table 7).
Acceptability of a smartphone gamified application
The first logistic regression model investigates the factors
that affect the acceptability of a smartphone gamified
application. The dependent variable is the acceptability
of the application, taking the value 1 if the respondent is
6 E. G. MANTOUKA ET AL.

Table . Logistic regression model of acceptability of the Table . Multivariate probit model results.
application.
Marginal
Variables Coefficient Pr(>|z|) Marginal effects Variables Coefficient Pr(>|z|) effects

Age (–) . . . Y: personalized travel information and indoor navigation
Age (–) . . .
People who travel less than . . . Age (–) − . . − .
 times per year Government employee . . .
People who travel for studies . . . Private employee . . .
Travelers who would like to . . . Time spent at the airport per . . .
have assistance at the flight: < hour
airport Smartphone users − . . − .
Travelers who would like to . . . Travelers who need . . .
get information about the assistance at the airport
airport’s services (Intercept) − . .
Personalized travel . . .
information and indoor Y: better way of spending time at the airport (shopping and VIP lounge)
navigation
Gender ( if female;  if male) . . .
Better way of spending time . . .
Income (<, €) − . . − .
at the airport (shopping
Time spent at the airport per − . . − .
and VIP lounge)
flight: < hour
(Intercept) − . .
Time spent at the airport per − . . − .
ACC .
flight: – hours
Precision .
Travelers who need . . .
Specificity (TNR) .
assistance at the airport
TPR .
Travelers who would like to . . .
FPR .
get information about the
FNR .
airport’s services
Area under the ROC curve .
(Intercept) − . .

Y: economic benefits

willing to use the application and the value 0 otherwise. Unemployed . . .
Flight frequency less than − . . − .
The independent variables used in the analysis are pre-  times per year
sented in Tables 1 and 2. The 80% of the sample was used Purpose of travel: . . .
recreational
for the learning of the model (train set), while the 20% Access the airport by car − . . − .
was used for verification (test set). The ACC of the model Time spent at the airport per . . .
flight: < hour
was estimated 86.4%, while the precision is 87.3% and Way of obtaining tickets: . . .
specificity 66.7%. booking website
(Intercept) . .

Correlation among dependent variables

Table . Logistic regression model of willingness to pay for the
application. Rho (Y, Y) . .
Rho (Y, Y) . .
Marginal Log likelihood − .
Variables Coefficient Pr(>|z|) effects Number of observations 

Gender ( if female;  if male) − . . − .

Age (–) . . .
Age (–) . . .
Income (<, €) − . . − . Table 5 presents the estimation results for the accept-
Income (,–, €) − . . − . ability of a smartphone gamified application as they
Income (,–, €) − . . − .
Domestic travelling − . . − .
emerged from the development of the model. All the vari-
Way of obtaining tickets: − . . − . ables are statistically significant at the 90% level.
booking website According to the results, travelers aged less than 44 and
Travelers who would like to . . .
have assistance at the those who travel less than 10 times per year are more likely
airport to accept such an application. This is probably because
Travelers who would like to . . .
get information about the those who travel rarely are less familiar with the airport
airport’s services and so features of the application such as indoor naviga-
(Intercept) − . .
ACC . tion and personalized information appear to be critical
Precision . for the acceptance of the application. People who believe
Specificity (TNR) .
TPR .
that “Personalized travel information and indoor naviga-
FPR . tion” as well as “Better way of spending time at the air-
FNR . port” are the main benefits of this application have an
Area under the ROC curve .
increased probability to accept it. Finally, both variables

that reflect the respondents’ desire of assistance at the air-
port, in terms of navigation and reception of information
about the airport’s services, are found to positively affect
the acceptability of the application, producing the highest
marginal effects (0.36 and 0.248, respectively).
It is seen that although the majority of passengers can
move easily around the airport, the existence of such an
application could be very useful both for regular airport
users and for those who travel rarely too. As was also iden-
tified in the preliminary analysis, the way travelers spend
their time in the airport is of major importance, when
it comes to experiencing a gamified concept. Although
some of the travelers may be aware of the numerous alter-
natives when at the airport, they could be engaged by the
applications’ incentives to enjoy further services, while
knowing that the application would provide them with
any important alert or other personalized information
concerning their flight.
Willingness to pay for the application
The second model developed investigates the willingness
to pay for the application. The dependent variable takes
the value 1 when the respondent is willing to pay in order
to use the gamified smartphone application, aiming at
providing efficient navigation and the value 0 when the
respondent is not. The independent variables that found
to be statistically significant at 90% level in explaining
those who have the intention to pay for the application
are presented in Table 6. Regarding goodness of fit, the
ACC of the model was estimated 79.6%. The specificity is
88.4%, while the precision is 72.4%; that means the model
can predict those who are not intending to pay for the
application but cannot predict to the same extent those
who would pay.
Results indicate that gender has a significant impact on
the willingness to pay for the application. Men are more
likely to pay for a smartphone application that provides
efficient navigation at the airport compared to women.
Moreover, it appears that people aged less than 44 are
more likely to pay for such an application. Younger peo-
ple recognize the usefulness of such applications and
appear to travel frequently so are willing to pay for them.
As expected higher income respondents (>40.000 €) are
more prepared to pay in order to use this application.
Furthermore, according to Table 6, travelers intend to
pay if features such as navigation and personal informa-
tion are provided from the application. Passengers who
state that they would like to have assistance for efficient
navigation from /to and inside the airport and that they
would like to get information about the airport’s services
have an increased probability to pay for the application.
JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 7
Information about the airport’s services influences at a
higher degree the willingness to pay (marginal effect of
0.202) compared to navigation (marginal effect of 0.139).
On the other hand, booking method and travel des-
tination negatively affect the willingness to pay for the
smartphone application; travelers who book their ticket
from booking website and those who travel domestic are
reluctant to pay in order to use the proposed application.
People who use a domestic flight are probably more famil-
iar with the airport area and thus, they are not willing to
use and pay for a navigation application. Trip character-
istics such as purpose of travel and trip frequency as well
as economic rewards were not found to affect significantly
the willingness to pay.
Benefits of the proposed application
Finally, an MP model was developed to investigate the fac-
tors that affect the systematic use of a gamified airport
application. The three factors (dependent variables) that
were examined are personalized travel information and
indoor navigation (Y1), better way of spending time at
the airport (Y2), and economic benefits (Y3). Estimation
results for the three equations of the multivariate model
(coefficients, significance levels and marginal effects) are
given in Table 7. The dependent variable “Alerts and noti-
fications about unexpected situations” was not included in
the analysis due to the poor goodness of fit of the model
developed.
According to the first equation of the model (Table 7),
travelers who need assistance at the airport are more likely
to continue using the gamified application for indoor nav-
igation, which is perfectly reasonable. Although both gov-
ernment and private employees would systematically use
the application for navigation purposes, the second vari-
able appears to have a higher significance level with this
feature of the applications. These could be explained if we
consider that private employees may travel more regularly
than other passengers, so they are interested in such appli-
cations concerning the airport. Finally, especially when
passengers are in a hurry, indoor navigation could be a
really useful tool in order to find their gate and board on
time. Therefore, travelers who spend less than 1 hour at
the airport before their flight, are more likely to use sys-
tematically the application for navigation.
The second equation shows that passengers who need
assistance at the airport would systematically use such an
application in order to better utilize their time at the air-
port and get information about the airport services. These
passengers may travel rarely so they are not familiar with
all the facilities which are offered from the airport. Con-
versely, travelers who spent less than 2 hours at the airport
8 E. G. MANTOUKA ET AL.
until boarding or those who have a low income would not
use the application for such purpose. These findings are
reasonable if we consider that in both cases passengers are
not interested in visiting the airport’s shops or other facil-
ities. The statistical analysis also suggests that women are
more likely to use the application in order to get informa-
tion related to the services provided by the airport.
According to the third equation, travelers who travel
frequently and book their ticket from a booking website
are more likely to use systematically the application in
order to have some economic benefits. Findings are rea-
sonable since the reward system of the application is based
on travel frequency and usage of the app, so the more
someone travels the higher the reward he gets. This is
in line with the study of Milioti et al. (2015) who con-
clude that people who travel with greater frequency have
a greater tendency to consider airline reward programs
like frequent flyer programs as an important factor in air-
line choice. Moreover, those who spend less than 1 hour at
the airport before boarding have a higher acceptance rate,
because they would use the personalized information and
alerts during their access to/from the airport.
Correlation coefficients among the equations are pre-
sented at the end of Table 7. Only statistically signifi-
cant values at the 90% confidence interval or higher are
reported. The results of the model depict the efficiency
gained by jointly modelling these factors. The positive –
and highly significant – correlation between “better way of
spending time at the airport (shopping and VIP lounge)”
and “personalized travel information and indoor naviga-
tion” (Rho = 0.282), and the correlation between the latter
and “economic benefits” (Rho = 0.177) highlights the fact
that travelers find these factors important in choosing to
use the proposed application.
Conclusion
The newly introduced concept of gamification in many
different environments seems to be the key to long-term
use and engagement with applications and programs. In
this paper, we examined the factors that affect the accep-
tance of a gamified smartphone application concerning
the airports. Moreover, we investigated the willingness of
the user to pay, as well as the factors that affect long-term
use of such an application.
Two logistic regression models and an MP model were
developed to analyze data collected from a questionnaire
survey, where more than 500 travelers were asked to iden-
tify their needs and impressions on the proposed applica-
tion at the Athens International Airport.
Findings revealed that airport applications could
be really useful for passengers to face existing chal-
lenges while waiting at the airport for boarding. These
challenges refer to difficulties on finding their optimal
route inside the airport, following the airport’s signs
and notifications and, spending their waiting time in a
productive way taking advantage of the available airport’s
facilities. Gamifying such an application appears to give
further incentives to travelers in order to benefit from the
rewards system too.
Results indicate that such applications are more likely
to be accepted by travelers who would like to have some
assistance when at the airport and get informed about all
the services and facilities of the airport; thus, a gamified
experience can engage them in using more of the airport’s
services while keeping everything concerning their flight
under control with personalized information and alerts.
Furthermore, people who need assistance in terms of nav-
igation inside the airport and especially those who travel
rarely find the application useful. Although one would
agree that the most frequent travelers would like to use
such an application to benefit from the reward system and
other gamification aspects (point scoring, leader boards
etc.), the results indicate that non-regular travelers are
more likely to use the application as personalized infor-
mation and in-door mapping are proven to be the most
important features of the application.
Moreover, although the majority of the travelers would
use a gamified application concerning the airport (72%),
only a few of them are willing to pay for it (35.2%). Finally,
results show that young people and higher income travel-
ers are more likely to pay for the app.
In order to investigate the factors that can lead to
a systematic use of such an application, three aspects
were examined: indoor navigation and personalized
information, better way of spending time at the airport
and economic benefits. The results show that significant
differences exist among travelers who travel for different
purposes, as well as among different occupation groups.
People who travel for recreational reasons and those
who travel regularly recognize that the reward system,
which includes economic rewards, discount coupons, free
tickets, etc. is an important feature of the application. On
the other hand, private employees would systematically
use the app in order to benefit from indoor mapping
for different points of interest. Furthermore, travelers
with low income are not interested in getting informa-
tion about shops and other facilities provided from the
airport. Finally, those who spend less than 1 hour at the
airport are more likely to use the application in order to
have some economic benefits.
Findings reveal that an airport-centric application
would be acceptable and useful for airport passengers
especially if it includes features such as indoor navi-
gation and personalized information and at the same
time eliminate the need of using each airline’s applica-
tion. Nevertheless, passengers travelling through a lot
of airports could end up with a significant number of

airport applications. This would lead to the proliferation
of airport-centric applications instead of proliferation of
airlines’ applications. Therefore, future research should
address this issue by developing an application which
could incorporate more than one airport.
The results described above can provide a complete
view on the characteristics of a potential user of a gam-
ified smartphone application, as well as the features that
the application should include in order to be accepted. In
addition, although a first impression on who is more likely
to pay for such an application was introduced, further
research appears to be essential in order to better specify
the factors that affect the willingness to pay. Finally, since
our findings show that travelers are very interested in the
gamification aspects of the application, future research
should focus on both more in-depth analysis of specific
gamified elements and the manner users are to interact
with them, in the framework of a gamified smart applica-
tion for transportation environments.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the staff of the Athens Interna-
tional Airport for allowing our team to conduct the survey.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict was reported by the authors.
ORCID
Emmanouil N. Barmpounakis http://orcid.org/0000-0001-
5455-6643
Eleni I. Vlahogianni http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2423-5475
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