Geocaching Motivations

Geocaching is a GPS-enabled treasure hunt. After only about twelve years from its birth, Geocaching has attracted over five million geocachers all around the world. The goal of this study is to understand psychological motivations of Geocaching practices within the community of worldwide geocachers. Understanding Geocaching motivations could lead to improvements in location-based games and also aid in promoting the Geocaching community. Results of two online surveys indicate a variation in Geocaching motivations

Profile of practice, travel behaviour and motivations for geocaching

Geocaching is a recreational sport activity considered as apostmodern treasure hunting game. Associated with the movement to distant places, the search for new landscapes, culture and adventure, geocaching is being integrated into the tourism industry. In spite of its growth and economic significance, few studieshave been developed to understand this sport tourism activity. Thus, this study was developed to understand the geocaching practice profile, geocaching travel behaviour and the motivations for the practice of geocaching, and to examine whether these variables are associated with the socio-demographic characteristics of geocachers.An online questionnaire survey was applied to geocachers living in Portugal, and 613 responses were obtained. The results show that geocaching is a recent sport activity in Portugal, whose motivations for practice are related to nature and escape, and that geocachers have a strong disposition to travel, highlighting the potential of geocaching for sport tourism. Statistical tests also revealed that socio-demographic characteristics are not associated with the geocaching practice profile and geocaching travel behaviour. However, the socio-demographic characteristics are associated with the motivations for the practice of geocaching, particularly when compared by sex, age and education level. Management and marketing implications for sport tourism operators and destinations are discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Younger Millennials and Outdoor Recreation: Understanding Outdoor Recreational Pursuits of Millennial College Students

Outdoor recreation has been shown through past research to provide numerous benefits to the participant when utilized, but for younger millennials, life’s expectations are pulling them away from participating. If there is a decrease in recreation participation, what will motivate this demographic toward participation in the future? The purpose of this study is to identify younger millennial perceptions, habits, and trends, so that in the future, recreation professionals are able to cater for specifically toward this demographic. Two universities in South Dakota, one public and one private, were surveyed through an online software program, QuestionPro, to a convenience sample from both schools. Younger millennials were specifically targeted by focusing on college students, who are between the ages of 19-24, to narrow the sample down to those on the younger end of the generation. The results of descriptive analysis found that the respondents like to recreate with others and prefer leisure recreation (walking, recreation with pets, lawn games) to active recreation. The study also found a positive correlation between length of time recreating and respondent comfort levels, as well as a positive correlation between structural constraints and respondents desire to enjoy nature. The respondents are more interested in programs that cater toward their interests instead of programs focused on history or culture. Future recreation professionals could use the information found in this study to create recreation programs that encourage group participation, cater toward millennial interests, and are more leisure orientated. By understanding motivations and constraints in this specific demographic, future professionals could draw new participants toward recreation and create lifelong users of outdoor recreation

Exploring the Effects of Geocaching on Understanding Natural Resources and History

Abstract Since 2000, geocaching has been enjoyed by enthusiasts who wish to combine technology with a love for the outdoors. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine if geocaching can contribute to a participant’s understanding of natural resources and history. To comprehend these effects, a study was conducted at Minnesota’s Wild River State Park in the summer of 2010. Four volunteer participants were recruited for in-depth interviews and qualitative inquiry was employed to learn about their geocaching experience and collect their responses. Inductive content analysis was used to analyze the interview data and identify possible geocaching effects based on participants’ perceptions. Six main categories were identified including learning, enjoyment, new attractions, constraints, economic benefits, and damage to the environment. Findings suggest that participants believed that their knowledge of park history and natural resources increased through geocaching. Recommendations, based on the findings, were given to park managers and the Minnesota DNR

Finding love: The materialities of love-locks and geocaches

This paper is the product of a collaboration between a folklorist researching the global phenomenon of love-locks (padlocks attached to public structures in declaration of romantic commitment) and an archaeologist who also happens to be a player of ‘Geocache’ (a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices). A chance discussion between the two revealed significant overlaps between love-locking and geocaching, despite the two practices being divergent in function and intention. Some overlaps are tangible, with love-locks forming an integral component of a number of geocaches worldwide. Other overlaps are theoretical, with both practices resulting in contemporary assemblages, or ‘serial collaborative creations’, fundamentally driven by the relationships between objects, places, and human participants. The question driving this paper is what can we learn about these two seemingly different customs by considering where they overlap

User Experience of Geocaching and Its Application to Tourism and Education

Advances in technology have provided new ways of using entertainment and game technology to foster human interaction. Games and playing with games have always been an important part of people’s everyday lives. Traditionally, human-computer interaction (HCI) research was seen as a psychological cognitive science focused on human factors, with engineering sciences as the computer science part of it. Although cognitive science has made significant progress over the past decade, the influence of people’s emotions on design networks is increasingly important, especially when the primary goal is to challenge and entertain users (Norman 2002). Game developers have explored the key issues in game design and identified that the driving force in the success of games is user experience. User-centered design integrates knowledge of users’ activity practices, needs, and preferences into the design process. Geocaching is a location-based treasure hunt game created by a community of players. Players use GPS (Global Position System) technology to find “treasures” and create their own geocaches; the game can be developed when the players invent caches and used more imagination to creations the caches. This doctoral dissertation explores user experience of geocaching and its applications in tourism and education. Globally, based on the Geocaching.com webpage, geocaching has been played about 180 countries and there are more than 10 million registered geocachers worldwide (Geocaching.com, 25.11.2014). This dissertation develops and presents an interaction model called the GameFlow Experience model that can be used to support the design of treasure hunt applications in tourism and education contexts. The GameFlow Model presents and clarifies various experiences; it provides such experiences in a real-life context, offers desirable design targets to be utilized in service design, and offers a perspective to consider when evaluating the success of adventure game concepts. User-centered game designs have adapted to human factor research in mainstream computing science. For many years, the user-centered design approach has been the most important research field in software development. Research has been focusing on user-centered design in software development such as office programs, but the same ideas and theories that will reflect the needs of a user-centered research are now also being applied to game design (Charles et al. 2005.) For several years, we have seen a growing interest in user experience design. Digital games are experience providers, and game developers need tools to better understand the user experience related to products and services they have created. This thesis aims to present what the user experience is in geocaching and treasure hunt games and how it can be used to develop new concepts for the treasure hunt. Engineers, designers, and researchers should have a clear understanding of what user experience is, what its parts are, and most importantly, how we can influence user satisfaction. In addition, we need to understand how users interact with electronic products and people, and how different elements synergize their experiences. This doctoral dissertation represents pioneering work on the user experience of geocaching and treasure hunt games in the context of tourism and education. The research also provides a model for game developers who are planning treasure hunt concepts.Teknologinen kehitys on tarjonnut uusia tapoja hyödyntää viihdettä ja peliteknologiaa ihmisten välisessä vuorovaikutuksessa. Pelit ja niiden pelaaminen on ollut aina tärkeä osa ihmisten arkipäivää. Ihmisen ja tietokoneen välisen vuorovaikutuksen tutkimus, human-computer interaction research (HCI), on perinteisesti nähty kognitiivisena psykologiana, johon kuuluvat inhimilliset tekijät, sekä insinööritieteenä, johon sisältyy tietojenkäsittelytiede. Vaikka kognitiivinen tiede on kehittynyt viime vuosina valtavasti, suunnitteluverkostoihin vaikuttavat ihmisten tunteet ovat yhä tärkeämmässä osassa, erityisesti silloin kun tavoitteena on haastaa ja viihdyttää käyttäjiä. (Norman 2002.) Pelinkehittäjät ovat selvittäneet pelisuunnittelun kannalta olennaisia tekijöitä ja tunnistaneet, että pelien menestyksen salaisuus on käyttäjäkokemus. Käyttäjäkeskeisessä suunnittelussa käyttäjien toiminnan käytäntöjen, tarpeiden ja toiveiden tuntemus tuodaan mukaan suunnitteluprosessiin. Geokätköily on paikannukseen perustuva aarteenetsintäpeli, jonka pelaajat ovat luoneet yhdessä. Pelaajat käyttävät GPS-teknologiaa "aarteiden" etsimiseen ja lisäävät omia geokätkökohteita ja peli kehittyy jatkuvasti pelaajien keksiessä kätköjä, jotka vaativat yhä enemmän mielikuvitusta. Tässäväitöskirjassa tutkitaan geokätköilyn käyttäjäkokemusta ja sen sovelluksia koulutuksen- ja matkailunaloilla. Perustuen Geocaching.com websivustoon geokätköilyä pelataan noin 180 maassa, ja rekisteröityneitä käyttäjiä on yli kymmenen miljoonaa eri puolilla maailmaa (Geocaching.com, 25.11.2014). Tässä tutkielmassa esitellään vuorovaikutusmalli nimeltään GameFlow Experience -mallia, jota voidaan käyttää aarteenetsintäsovellusten suunnittelussa koulutuksen- ja matkailualojen konteksteissa. GameFlow Experience -malli esittelee ja selventää erilaisia kokemuksia - se esittelee ne todellisessa kontekstissa, tarjoaa erilaisia suunnittelutavoitteita palvelusuunnittelua varten sekä näkökulman, joka tulisi ottaa huomioon seikkailupelien menestystä arvioitaessa. Käyttäjäkeskeisessä pelisuunnittelussa on sovellettu inhimillisten tekijöiden tutkimusta valtavirran tietojenkäsittelytieteeseen. Useiden vuosien ajan, käyttäjäkeskeisen suunnittelun lähestymistavasta on tullut tärkein tutkimusala ohjelmistokehityksessä. Tutkimus on keskittynyt ohjelmistojen kehitykseen käyttäjäkeskeisessä suunnittelussa etenkin toimisto-ohjelmistoihin, mutta samoja ideoita ja teorioita, jotka heijastavat yhteiskunnan tarpeita käyttäjäkeskeisessä tutkimuksessa sovelletaan nyt myös pelisuunnitteluun. (Charles ja ym. 2005.) Kiinnostus käyttäjäkokemuksen suunnitteluun on kasvanut jo useiden vuosien ajan. Digitaaliset pelit tarjoavat kokemuksia, ja pelisuunnittelijat tarvitsevatkin työkaluja, joiden avulla voidaan entistä paremmin ymmärtää tuotteiden ja palvelujen luomia käyttäjäkokemuksia. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on esitellä käyttäjäkokemusta ja miten sitä voidaan käyttää uusien aarteenmetsästyskonseptien kehittämiseen. Insinööreillä, suunnittelijoilla ja tutkijoilla tulisi olla selkeä käsitys siitä, mikä käyttäjäkokemus on, mitkä ovat sen osat ja mikä tärkeintä, miten voimme vaikuttaa käyttäjän tyytyväisyyteen. Lisäksi pitäisi ymmärtää, miten käyttäjät toimivat elektronisten tuotteiden kanssa sekä miten ihmiset toimivat vuorovaikutuksessa toistensa kanssa ja miten eri osat vaikuttavat yhdessä käyttäjien kokemuksiin. Väitöskirja on pioneerityö käyttäjäkokemuksesta geokätköilyssä ja aarteenetsintä peleissä matkailun ja opetuksen kontekstissa. Tutkimus antaa myös mallin pelin kehittäjille, jotka suunnittelevat aarteenetsintäkonsepteja.Siirretty Doriast

Can geocaching be an indicator of cultural ecosystem services? The case of the montado savannah-like landscape

Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) are difficult to assess and are seldom considered by land managers. Geocaching, an outdoor game that uses Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled devices to find hidden containers (geocaches) in certain locations, has been seldom used as a data source to assess CES. However, contrary to other crowdsourcing databases, geocaching allows to associate particular experiences to accurate locations. Furthermore, databases generated by geocachers provide an ideal case to compare revealed preferences (the frequency of visits to a specific geocache) with stated preferences (a posteriori evaluation of each location). We tested the relevance of geocaching databases as CES indicators using a dataset of 50 818 geocaches spread across continental Portugal, over eight land-use classes, with a focus on the montado (a high nature value farmland found in Southwestern Iberian Peninsula). We found that site visitation frequency was related with its availability, showing no revealed preference towards any land use. However, site evaluations by geocachers, measured either through the number of words describing the experience, the number of photos taken, or the number of votes for “favourite geocaches”, showed marked differences in their stated preferences, with higher appreciation for open land uses in general, and montado in particular, especially when compared to other forested landscapes. Our results may contribute to the design of regional development and land-use management policies of this threatened landscape, since they show the system’s strong potential as CES provider and, consequently, promoter of diversification of activities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The development of geocaching in the theory of a tourism area cycle of evolution by Butler

With improved economic standing of Polish society, growing salaries, increased average amount of leisure and technological advances tourism flows in Poland increase year by year. This is generated by both domestic travel and foreign arrivals. For about a decade the number of overnight stays provided to tourists, including those from foreign countries, have increased. Today tourism is among most rapidly developing and complex areas of social life. Tourism development has a series of consequences, both positive and negative. In order to remain competitive, tourist area requires proper management. This can be achieved by, among other things, implementing corrective action in response to the ever changing external and internal conditions. These may impact tourism intensity and quality and thereby tourism area lifecycle. The present paper attempted to differentiate geocaching stages of development in Poland based on the concept of tourism area lifecycle by Butler. Problem identification and recommendations for further actions aiming to cease or restore tourism functions were also at the basis for considerations. Individual stages of development were discussed based on two major geocaching websites in Poland. References were also made to worldwide trends and interests

Digital social interactions in the city: reflecting on location-based social media

In this paper we discuss how digital interactions are increasingly interwoven with spaces and places in urban settings and how such interactions are mediated by and in turn shape the technologies that facilitate them. We will focus on the understanding of interactions using location based social media (particularly Foursquare) as a way to reflect on issues of technological support to human activities, and on the relationship between code, digital agency and the physical world