Navigation System for Foreign Tourists in Japan

The present study aimed to design, develop, operate and evaluate a sightseeing navigation system in order to support foreign tourists’ efficient acquisition of sightseeing spot information in Japanese urban tourist areas, about which a variety of information is transmitted, by enabling information to be accumulated, shared and recommended. The system was developed by integrating Web-GIS (Geographic Information Systems), SNS (Social Networking Services) as well as the recommendation system into a single system. The system used the non-language information such as signs, marks and pictograms in addition to English information, and displayed sightseeing spot information and conduct navigation on 2D and 3D digital maps of the Web-GIS. Additionally, the system was operated for two weeks in the central part of Yokohama city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, and the total number of users was 54. Based on the results of the web questionnaire survey, all of the specific functions are highly evaluated, and the usefulness of the system when sightseeing was excellent. From the results of the access analysis of users’ log data, it is evident that it can be said that the system was mainly used before sightseeing and users confirm their favorite sightseeing spots and made their tour planning in advance, using 2D and 3D digital maps

Tourism mobile and recommendation systems - a state of the art

Recommendation systems have been growing in number for the last fifteen years. To evolve and adapt to the demands of the actual society, many paradigms emerged giving birth to even more paradigms and hybrid approaches. Mobile devices have also been under an incredible growth rate in every business area, and there are already lots of mobile based systems to assist tourists. This explosive growth gave birth to different mobile applications, each having their own advantages and disadvantages. Since recommendation and mobile systems might as well be integrated, this work intends to present the current state of the art in tourism mobile and recommendation systems, as well as to state their advantages and disadvantages

Walking Support System with Users’ Circumstances

In Japan, the central government started the promotion of citizens’ health by self-supervision in 2000, and walking is recently recognized as the most popular sport for many generations. Based on this background, the present study aimed to design, develop, operate, and evaluate a walking support system, which takes into account the users’ circumstances (each user’s health conditions, needs, and preferences). The system was developed by integrating Web-GIS (geographic information systems) as a base system and social networking services (SNS) as well as a registration system of walking information into a single system. Additionally, the system was operated for 5 weeks in Chofu City in Tokyo Metropolis, Japan, and the total number of users was 73. Based on the results of the Web questionnaire survey, the usefulness of the system when selecting a walking course was high, and the further use of each function can be expected by the continuous operation of the system. From the results of access analysis of users’ log data, it is evident that the system has been used by two types of information terminals approximately in the same way, and that the entire system has been used according to the purpose of the present study, which is to effectively support the users’ walking

SPETA: Social pervasive e-tourism advisor

Tourism is one of the major sources of income for many countries. Therefore, providing efficient, real-time service for tourists is a crucial competitive asset which needs to be enhanced using major technological advances. The current research has the objective of integrating technological innovation into an information system, in order to build a better user experience for the tourist. The principal strength of the approach is the fusion of context-aware pervasive systems, GIS systems, social networks and semantics. This paper presents the SPETA system, which uses knowledge of the user’s current location, preferences, as well as a history of past locations, in order to provide the type of recommender services that tourists expect from a real tour guide.This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism, and Commerce under the GODO project (FIT-340000-2007-134), under the PIBES project of the Spanish Committee of Education and Science (TEC2006-12365-C02-01) and under the MID-CBR project of the Spanish Committee of Education and Science (TIN2006-15140-C03-02).Publicad

Recommendation & mobile systems - a state of the art for tourism

Recommendation systems have been growing in number over the last fifteen years. To evolve and adapt to the demands of the actual society, many paradigms emerged giving birth to even more paradigms and hybrid approaches. These approaches contain strengths and weaknesses that need to be evaluated according to the knowledge area in which the system is going to be implemented. Mobile devices have also been under an incredible growth rate in every business area, and there are already lots of mobile based systems to assist tourists. This explosive growth gave birth to different mobile applications, each having their own advantages and disadvantages. Since recommendation and mobile systems might as well be integrated, this work intends to present the current state of the art in tourism mobile and recommendation systems, as well as to state their advantages and disadvantages

WebGIS Application of Geospatial Technology for Tourist Destination in Malang

Tourism is a place of relaxation for people in which they can plan their sights based on Information. GIS-based information is increasingly important among tourists as it allows them to get to know places, and this has a deep appeal for travel planning. Malang is a famous tourist destination in Indonesia. The region is visited by a large number of tourists from various parts of the world each year. The number of tourists visiting Malang from year to year is always increasing by considering the number of tourism potential in Malang. However, in the absence of a Tourist Information System, tourists face various difficulties in finding various tourism information. Geospatial technology has changed every area of life and the tourism industry cannot be excluded. The purpose of this research is to develop an interactive and easy-to-use Geographic Information System (GIS) that enables tourists to get information about tourism objects. This research actively demonstrates the potential application of geospatial technology to explore tourist destinations with some detailed information

A Recommendation System Regarding Meeting Places for Groups during Events

The present study aimed to design, develop, operate, and evaluate a recommendation system for meeting places targeting groups of two or more people during events. The system was designed and developed by integrating an accessibility database, as well as a recommendation system, and linking with Google Maps and social networking services (SNSs, Twitter and LINE). Additionally, the system was operated for 5 weeks with people mainly in the Tokyo metropolitan area, with Japan as the target, and the total number of users was 59. Based on the results of the web questionnaire survey, it was made evident that the system is useful for groups when meeting up, and the entry function for the nearest station to one’s home, as well as the recommendation function for meet-up stations, which was the original functions of the system, received generally good reviews. From the results of access analysis of the users’ log data, it was made evident that the system was used regardless of the type of device, just as the system was designed for, and that the system was used in harmony with the aim of the present study, which is to recommend meet-up stations for groups

Application of an opinion consensus aggregation model based on OWA operators to the recommendation of tourist sites

Given the growth in tourism online data as a result of a large number of users posting their personal opinions in social networks and other online platforms with the idea to help other visitants, many authors have proposed a huge variety of ways to classify the sentiments contained in these opinions in order to recommend services (hotels, restaurants, etc.) and destinations to the users with the intention of facilitating their trip planning. In this paper, the authors propose a model to rank tourist sites of a city, based on OWA operators, with the objective of being used as a recommender system.The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the EU project H2020-MSCA-IF-2016- DeciTrustNET-746398. This paper has been elaborated with the financing of FEDER funds in the Spanish National research project TIN2016-75850-R