Tokenized Incentives and Loyalty: Leveraging Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts for Enhancing Eco-Tourism Behavioral Engagement

This research investigates ways in which blockchain smart contracts and gamified token rewards can increase eco-tourists' engagement and loyalty to online sustainability practices. The tourism industry faces challenges when it comes to converting intentions into sustainable behaviours, despite the obvious value of environmental sustainability. Traditional loyalty frameworks do not provide much real-time feedback or emotional resonance and limit the amount of transparency the agents have. As a result, traditional loyalty frameworks lose their effectiveness over time. Therefore, we developed a simulation-based experimentation model, that was based on Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) and the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework that consisted of 200 synthetic agents who have differing psychographic profiles and 10 decision rounds with different token incentive conditions. The simulation model tests six hypotheses from Self-Determination Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and Value-Belief-Norm. The results suggest that the visibility and perceived value of the tokens mostly impact intention and behaviour. There is also a distinction between perceived behavioural control and intrinsic motivation regarding the effects of incentives. The relationship between behavioural repetition and satisfaction with token redemption produced the emergence of loyalty intentions. The proposed methodological approach shows that by controlling tokens according to users' psychological characteristics, gamified smart contracts can foster long-term eco-engagement in users. This research offers a useful plan for testing digital behaviour changes and provides practical advice for building token-based, emotionally conscious ecotourism platforms. Building on cognitive-affective theory, we integrated it with blockchain technology, which will redefine behavioural governance, gamification, and sustainability in future travel ecosystems.