Designing Conceptual Framework of a Digital Twin Serious Game for Climate-Resilient Cultural Tourism Management

This master's thesis by Saba Najjar proposes a conceptual framework for a digital twin serious game intended to support stakeholder decision-making in climate-resilient cultural tourism management. Its central argument is that heritage tools to date are largely static, documenting or visualizing sites rather than simulating climate risk or providing shared, scenario-based spaces for negotiation among stakeholders. Although high-level climate policy, including UNESCO's World Heritage Climate Action framework, has elevated cultural heritage within global agendas, it has not yet produced operational mechanisms for site-level, multi-stakeholder planning. The study positions serious gaming as a means to close this gap by fostering collaborative learning and consensus-building.

The principal contribution is the MDA+L framework, which extends Hunicke et al.'s Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics model with a fourth dimension of Learning Outcomes. Derived inductively from twelve semi-structured expert interviews conducted between October 2025 and January 2026 across eight European countries, and combined with a systematic literature review, the framework treats learning as an emergent property of stakeholder interaction rather than as delivered content. Experts emphasized that such games work best when built around a clearly defined learning outcome, with the environmental consequences of player decisions serving as the core resource, and they recommended role assignment outside players' real-world positions, baseline and follow-up surveys, and real-time data coupling.

The study's scope is predominantly European and academic, and its design-oriented, qualitative method yields a conceptual rather than empirically validated product. The author acknowledges important limitations: coding was performed by a single researcher, the sample relied on snowball recruitment and included no local community members, and the framework has not been prototyped or tested with skeptical managers or policymakers. Identified practical challenges include technological cost and accessibility, translating complex climate systems into engaging mechanics, and bringing diverse stakeholders together. The thesis therefore frames its findings as a foundation for prototype development and empirical testing rather than as established outcomes.