A mobile personalized tourist guide and its user evaluation

Abstract

The paper presents an interactive electronic guide application prototype able to recommend personalized multiple-day tourist itineraries to mobile web users. The proposed application relies on an evolutionary optimizer that allows the determination, in an acceptable time, of a near-optimal user-adapted tour for each day of the visit by considering different conflicting objectives. The tour optimizer automatically plans the itinerary by selecting the sights of potential interest based on user preferences, the available visit time considered on a daily basis, opening days and hours, visiting times, accessibility of the places of interest and weather forecasting. The interactive functionalities and facilities provided by the application are illustrated along with the model used to adapt the tourist itinerary to user preferences and constraints. An experimental qualitative and quantitative evaluation has been performed to assess the validity of the guide prototype. Particular attention has been devoted to the usability of the application and its graphic unit interface along with user satisfaction.

Quality Audit Indicators for Inbound Tourism: A Qualitative Study on Malaysian Travel Agencies

“…The travel agency needs to make sure their guides are abreast with issues pertaining to the travel business, changing rules and regulations, and trends for absolute customer satisfaction. In recent developments, which are in line with IR 4.0, the interactive electronic guides are a great help for the tourism business (Tarantino et al 2019). Most challenges faced by travel agencies are the constraints in safety and security issues in the visited destinations.…”

Improving Itinerary Recommendations for Tourists Through Metaheuristic Algorithms: An Optimization Proposal

“…Tarantino et al [17] present an interactive electronic guide application prototype able to recommend personalized multiple-day tourist itineraries to mobile web users. This recommender system is based on users' preferences, especially a model used to adapt the tourist itinerary to user preferences and constraints.…”

Classification and Improvement Strategy for Design Features of Mobile Tourist Guide Application: A Kano-IPA Approach

“…Kang et al [8] developed the location-based audio tour guide application using speech synthesis technology, which is helpful for enhancing self-guided tours of destinations. Tarantino et al [20] proposed an interactive electronic guide application prototype, which can recommend personalized tourist routes to mobile users, and evaluated the effectiveness of the prototype through an experimentation. Such studies heavily analyse the design, development, or implementation of MTGAs and discuss their main advantages and limitations.…”