The challenge facing developers of Tourism Information Systems (TIS) is the need to evolve
more intelligent and dependable tourism support services. However, these kinds of information
systems have largely identical functionalities and delivers almost similar services. The systems
differ mostly in the customized information contents they deliver and the scope of the tourism
interest that is being promoted. The peculiarity of the e-Tourism domain makes it ideal for
product line development. In this paper, a reference Tourism Product Line Architecture (TPLA)
as a platform for evolving intelligent component services is proposed. The TPLA is a layered
architecture of core reusable components that can be leveraged for the development of a TIS
product family. The architecture is extensible and its components are formally specified as
possessing intrinsic intelligent attributes and the semantic awareness that are desirable for the
next generation of Tourism Information Systems
