Raising awareness and promoting informal learning on World Heritage in Southern Africa: The case of WHACY, a gamified ICT-enhanced tool

Diffusion of digital games and the trend of gamification in various fields have increased scholars’ attention on how digital games or their elements can be introduced into formal and informal learning practices. Majority of the research in this field has been conducted in economically developed regions and not so much in emerging economies. With this study the researchers focused on developing region of Southern African Development Community (SADC). World Heritage Awareness Campaign for Youth (WHACY) in SADC is a campaign dedicated to raise awareness and foster informal learning among Southern African youth about the heritage and sustainable tourism in the region. The campaign employed an online and offline gamified learning platform, which was supported by a dedicated website, Facebook page, wiki and offline materials. In one year of operation the campaign reached more than 100K audience. The purpose of this paper is to present the development, implementation, and evaluation of the campaign. The goals of the evaluation were dedicated to assess user experience in terms of engagement and conduciveness to learning as well as exploring the possibility of a gamified application to be integrated into the regular high school tourism curriculum. South African tourism students’ and tourism teachers’ perspectives were taken into consideration.