Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

Distributed multimodal journey planner based on mashup of individual planners’ APIs

In this research work we describe the creation of the concept of a distributed journey planning system that links as many journey planning services as are available in public transportation operators and willing to participate in one or more networks of journey planners across Europe. This is integrated on European project MASAI and it is part of a development of mobile solutions that allows journey plans in Europe based on public transportation availability, with the possibility of buying tickets in a mobile device with a multi-operator scenario. A semantic context was created in order to identify which Application-Programming Interfaces (APIs) from different public transport operators to use and set start\end trip points.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Alter ego, state of the art on user profiling: an overview of the most relevant organisational and behavioural aspects regarding User Profiling.

This report gives an overview of the most relevant organisational and\ud behavioural aspects regarding user profiling. It discusses not only the\ud most important aims of user profiling from both an organisation’s as\ud well as a user’s perspective, it will also discuss organisational motives\ud and barriers for user profiling and the most important conditions for\ud the success of user profiling. Finally recommendations are made and\ud suggestions for further research are given

Improving Mobile GIS applications through the identification of Geographic Context

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular. Their functionalities have become more than just making phone calls, due to regular improvements to these devices. Thus, with their notable increase in computational power, these devices have become able to support applications based on georeferenced data. By allowing the manipulation, visualisation and sharing of such data, these applications (supported by, for example, Google Maps or OpenStreetMap) have also shown an increasingly higher popularity. In this dissertation, we developed an adaptive Geographic Information System for Android devices, which displays relevant information to the user, based on the detected geographic context. The platform is supported by the concept of a context adaptation model, which enables the identification of particular situations in the context of the user, and the consequent adaptation of the application’s interface to the identified event. The context of the user is composed of the information collected by the sensors present in most mobile devices, which also enables the system to automatically adapt its content and thus become more relevant (according to the detected conditions), contributing for a better user experience. The relevant events to be listened to and the actions to be taken accordingly are managed in an administrator online tool, allowing for simplified software maintenance. By defining adaptation rules on aWeb platform, the administrators are able to configure the Android application’s behaviour without having to change the existing code. Finally, the developed platform was tested on a prototype of a Tourism application. The system was evaluated in two distinct parts - Web platform and Android application - by several participants, who agreed that the second is easy to use, while the first requires some previous learning.Os dispositivos móveis são cada vez mais populares. Devido a melhorias constantes destes dispositivos, as suas funcionalidades tornaram-se muito mais do que simplesmente efetuar chamadas. Assim, com a notável evolução do seu poder computacional, estes dispositivos passaram a ser capazes de suportar aplicações baseadas em dados georreferenciados. Ao possibilitar a manipulação, visualização e partilha de tais dados, estas aplicações (suportadas, por exemplo, por Google Maps ou OpenStreetMap) têm também apresentado um crescimento e popularidade cada vez maior. Nesta dissertação, foi desenvolvido um Sistema de Informação Geográfica adaptativo para dispositivos Android, que mostra informações relevantes ao utilizador, com base no contexto geográfico detetado. A plataforma é apoiada por um modelo de adaptação contextual, que permite a identificação de situações particulares no contexto do utilizador, e a consequente adaptação da interface da aplicação ao evento identificado. O contexto do utilizador é composto pelas informações recolhidas pelos sensores presentes na maioria dos dispositivos móveis, que também permite ao sistema adaptar automaticamente o seu conteúdo e, assim, tornar-se mais relevante (de acordo com as condições detectadas), contribuindo para uma melhor experiência de utilizador. Os eventos relevantes a serem tidos em conta e as ações a serem tomadas em conformidade são geridos através de uma ferramenta online de administrador, permitindo uma manutenção de software simples. Ao definir regras de adaptação numa plataforma Web, os administradores podem configurar o comportamento da aplicação Android sem precisar de alterar o código existente. Finalmente, a plataforma desenvolvida foi testada num protótipo de uma aplicação de Turismo. O sistema foi avaliado em duas partes - plataforma Web e aplicação Android - por vários participantes, que concordaram que a segunda é fácil de utilizar, enquanto a primeira requer alguma aprendizagem