In an effort to promote its rewards program, Marriott has launched an Apple-based travel game that users can play and win up to one million reward points.
Social travel game Xplor is all about finding a lost Aunt Sophia. She can be in one of the five cities - New York, Sao Paulo, Paris, Dubai, and Beijing.
Users will start with New York where a number challenges have to be solved. Once a challenge is completed, a user earns a Golden Ticket. Each city has four Golden Tickets to be secured. Once all four tickets in a city is secured, the next city unlocks.
The user whoever collects all 20 Golden Ticket can rescue Aunt Sophia and will be considered as winner.
US residents who have completed a city by November 25, 2013, will have to register to enter into a drawing. Five entrants will win 100,000 Marriott Rewards points.
Also, users who have completed the entire game by December 23, 2013 will enter into a drawing. The winner and runners will receive a total of 500,000 Marriott Rewards points and an around-the-world airline ticket for the winner.
Users playing the game can also chat with fellow users in the game via the app.
The game is optimized for iOS devices - iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, and it can be downloaded for free from the app store.
David Rodriguez, executive VP and chief human resources officer at Marriott International, says:
"Social gaming is part of our innovation strategy to engage customers and attract the next generation of social, mobile travelers and employees to Marriott. With more than half a billion people playing social games globally—this is an exciting new channel for our company to promote travel and engage with people."
The game was developed in partnership with Evviva Games.
In 2011, Marriott launched a Facebook-based game by name My Marriott Hotel that was primarily targeted towards recruitment for the chain.
Last week, the gaming giant Electronic Artsreleased a vacation theme-based game called The Sims 3 Island Paradise.