A Design Concept for a Tourism Recommender System for Regional Development

Despite of tourism infrastructure and software, the development of tourism is hampered due to the lack of information support, which encapsulates various aspects of travel implementation. This paper highlights a demand for integrating various approaches and methods to develop a universal tourism information recommender system when building individual tourist routes. The study objective is proposing a concept of a universal information recommender system for building a personalized tourist route. The developed design concept for such a system involves a procedure for data collection and preparation for tourism product synthesis; a methodology for tourism product formation according to user preferences; the main stages of this methodology implementation. To collect and store information from real travelers, this paper proposes to use elements of blockchain technology in order to ensure information security. A model that specifies the key elements of a tourist route planning process is presented. This article can serve as a reference and knowledge base for digital business system analysts, system designers, and digital tourism business implementers for better digital business system design and implementation in the tourism sector

Sistema de recomendação de meios de hospedagem baseado em filtragem colaborativa e informações contextuais

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia e Gestão do ConhecimentoEste trabalho apresenta um sistema de recomendação de meios de hospedagem, que utiliza filtragem colaborativa e informações contextuais, com a finalidade de apresentar resultados personalizados aos usuários que buscam informações na Internet para planejarem suas viagens. A concepção e o desenvolvimento do sistema seguem um procedimento metodológico proposto a partir de uma revisão de literatura. Considerando a complexidade e as particularidades do domínio de aplicação (viagens e turismo), a filtragem colaborativa não é utilizada com sua formulação básica, mas com uma nova abordagem que permite oferecer ao usuário recomendações de hotéis que pessoas com perfil e contexto de viagem similares ao seu preferiram no passado. Para isso, variáveis contextuais são identificadas e incorporadas ao sistema. O sistema proposto foi implementado na agência Tropix Turismo Inteligente, onde uma avaliação preliminar foi realizada. Os experimentos consistiram na comparação entre duas técnicas colaborativas (co-seno e 'similaridade heurística') e a recomendação dos hotéis mais populares ('POP'). Os resultados mostraram que as técnicas colaborativas são mais eficientes que a exibição dos itens mais populares, pois permitem a apresentação de recomendações personalizadas de acordo com o perfil e o contexto de viagem do usuário. A aplicação de sistemas de recomendação em sites de turismo proporciona benefícios aos usuários, por facilitar suas buscas e apoiar suas decisões. E também contribui para a competitividade das empresas do setor, por meio da fidelização do cliente e o conseqüente aumento das vendas

Exploratory Browsing

In recent years the digital media has influenced many areas of our life. The transition from analogue to digital has substantially changed our ways of dealing with media collections. Today‟s interfaces for managing digital media mainly offer fixed linear models corresponding to the underlying technical concepts (folders, events, albums, etc.), or the metaphors borrowed from the analogue counterparts (e.g., stacks, film rolls). However, people‟s mental interpretations of their media collections often go beyond the scope of linear scan. Besides explicit search with specific goals, current interfaces can not sufficiently support the explorative and often non-linear behavior. This dissertation presents an exploration of interface design to enhance the browsing experience with media collections. The main outcome of this thesis is a new model of Exploratory Browsing to guide the design of interfaces to support the full range of browsing activities, especially the Exploratory Browsing. We define Exploratory Browsing as the behavior when the user is uncertain about her or his targets and needs to discover areas of interest (exploratory), in which she or he can explore in detail and possibly find some acceptable items (browsing). According to the browsing objectives, we group browsing activities into three categories: Search Browsing, General Purpose Browsing and Serendipitous Browsing. In the context of this thesis, Exploratory Browsing refers to the latter two browsing activities, which goes beyond explicit search with specific objectives. We systematically explore the design space of interfaces to support the Exploratory Browsing experience. Applying the methodology of User-Centered Design, we develop eight prototypes, covering two main usage contexts of browsing with personal collections and in online communities. The main studied media types are photographs and music. The main contribution of this thesis lies in deepening the understanding of how people‟s exploratory behavior has an impact on the interface design. This thesis contributes to the field of interface design for media collections in several aspects. With the goal to inform the interface design to support the Exploratory Browsing experience with media collections, we present a model of Exploratory Browsing, covering the full range of exploratory activities around media collections. We investigate this model in different usage contexts and develop eight prototypes. The substantial implications gathered during the development and evaluation of these prototypes inform the further refinement of our model: We uncover the underlying transitional relations between browsing activities and discover several stimulators to encourage a fluid and effective activity transition. Based on this model, we propose a catalogue of general interface characteristics, and employ this catalogue as criteria to analyze the effectiveness of our prototypes. We also present several general suggestions for designing interfaces for media collections

Experiências de enoturismo. Estudo de caso: a gestão do produto Winelands Roadbooks.

O presente estudo reflecte uma abordagem conceptual, expositiva e de análise de mercado à envolvente das experiências de enoturismo no território português, tendo como estudo de caso um produto de marca nacional que visa a promoção de pacotes turísticos com uma natureza distinta e direccionada a um público especializado. Uma introdução temática ao turismo de experiências, seguida de uma introdução ao enoturismo foi posteriormente associada à gestão operacional de produtos turísticos. Essa base teórica foi aplicada no estudo das características e potencialidades do estudo de caso – a observação directa, a análise de documentos oficiais, o modelo das histórias de vida e a aplicação de entrevistas semi-estruturadas permitiram apurar qual a percepção interna relativamente ao desempenho de um produto de enoturismo recentemente implementado nos canais de distribuição.This dissertation reports conceptual, narrative, and market analysis research concerning experience tourism and wine tourism in the national territory. A case study is presented of a Portuguese branded product that aims to sell experiential touristic circuits with wine activities and designed for a specialized public. Experiential tourism is the opening issue, followed by a wine tourism introduction that allowed us to understand the operational management of wine as a touristic product. This sequence of fields was linked to the case study potentialities – a direct observation, an official document analysis, the model of recits de vie, and the submit of semi-structured interviews enabled to investigate the internal perceptions regarding the performance of a recently implemented wine tourism product in the distribution channels