A mobile personalized tourist guide and its user evaluation

Abstract

The paper presents an interactive electronic guide application prototype able to recommend personalized multiple-day tourist itineraries to mobile web users. The proposed application relies on an evolutionary optimizer that allows the determination, in an acceptable time, of a near-optimal user-adapted tour for each day of the visit by considering different conflicting objectives. The tour optimizer automatically plans the itinerary by selecting the sights of potential interest based on user preferences, the available visit time considered on a daily basis, opening days and hours, visiting times, accessibility of the places of interest and weather forecasting. The interactive functionalities and facilities provided by the application are illustrated along with the model used to adapt the tourist itinerary to user preferences and constraints. An experimental qualitative and quantitative evaluation has been performed to assess the validity of the guide prototype. Particular attention has been devoted to the usability of the application and its graphic unit interface along with user satisfaction.