A human-centric decision-support system for smart and sustainable tourism management in urban settings

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper presents a human-centric decision-support system for planning a sustainable daily sightseeing tour in cities with diverse cultural and historical attractions. The system, personalised and with a particular emphasis on sustainability, is developed through a participatory design approach based on a survey targeted at tourists and evaluations from two focus groups involving stakeholders in the tourist industry. The tour is determined using an optimisation model that tackles the Green Tourist Trip Design Problem, considering user preferences such as budget, time availability, transportation modes, and the inclusion of dining options within a specified time window. The objective is to maximise a trip score while minimising CO2 emissions. The proposed model is tested in an urban setting, encompassing 58 Points of Interest (POIs) in the city of Reggio Calabria, Italy. The Analytical Hierarchy Process is employed as a multi-criteria decision-making method to assign scores to each POI. Additionally, a mobile application is developed to implement the optimisation model, providing a user-friendly interface for tourists to set parameters. The numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach, underlying the importance of a continuous improvement in developing systems with a great collaboration between smart technologies, sustainability, and participatory design.