The Gamejam of Serious Games aimed to introduce new prototypes and solutions applied to the tourism sector. The session took place at EUHT StPOL on March 17 and 18The event was attended by 8 teams from different centers, studies, profiles and courses.

The University College of Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts (EUHT StPOL) and The School of New Interactive Technologies (ENTI) organized, on March 17 and 18, the first Gamejam in Spain by the title “Serious Games for Tourism”, an activity about how to apply games to Hospitality and Tourism industry.

The event, which consisted of two sessions, took place at Hotel School’s Sant Pol de Mar installations. Eight teams from different centers, studies, profiles and courses spent 12 hours working together to prototype game solutions applied to the tourism industry. Both disciplines –game design and hospitality-tourism – were interconnected by young generations.

A European Research Project called JamToday was the base of the two sessions knowledge. This project, which involves business, public institutions and schools – among others -, is the first European net dedicated to the applied game design.

The main objective of the event was to make young students generate able prototypes to resolve the future hospitality needs. In fact, the students had to design the “hotel of the future” by attending those needs.  We treated issues such as hotels themed by Augmented Reality, the improvement of the client experience by local points of connection, customization culinary games, new check-in tools, serious games on virtual reality or team building on hotels, among others.

The concept, the narrative and psychology were the real stars of the creative process ahead of the purely technological aspects. In addition, participants expressed what they thought about the actions a hotel or related service has to do to attract young people.

At the last meeting, on March 18, the participants of the Gamejam conceptualized the following products: Role Playing Hotels, FreeXP, M3SA, GamEat, MH (MyHotel), Easy Stay, Wander 3D60, VR Team Building. The jury chose these three winning projects: Easy Stay, GamEat y FreeXP.

In short, gamejams are an excellent opportunity to bring together different professional profiles and to add knowledge and skills with the goal of designing innovative prototypes. On this occasion, “Serious Games for Tourism”, the first Gamejam in Spain organized by EUHT StPOL and ENTI-UB, has allowed the creation of new and powerful pieces that respond to certain future needs of the hospitality industry designed by and for young people.