Plan Trips Research Articles

Riding transit to parks in Utah: Motivations, constraints, negotiations, and policy recommendations

In this paper, we studied the motivations, constraints, negotiations, and policy changes for riding transit to parks in Utah’s Wasatch Front region, exploring how these factors vary between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged individuals. This is one of the first studies to explore transit-to-parks experiences in large urban regions. We conducted interviews with 25 diverse transit riders. Motivations for riding transit to parks included environmental concerns and the convenience of avoiding parking and traffic. Constraints involved excessive travel time due to limited service, transit frequency and reliability issues, and last-mile connection issues. The main negotiation strategy was to plan trips to limit travel time. People in low-income neighborhoods had limited transit-to-parks services, and available services were adequate for fit and non-disabled people. Policy changes that would help participants address constraints included new or modified routes, improved last-mile connections, information and marketing campaigns, and better service for low-income communities and people with disabilities.

Legal Basis of Educational Processes of Artificial Intelligence Algorithms in E-tourism

E-tourism has become a key component in the tourism industry and allows travelers to easily access information about destinations and services via the Internet, facilitating their travel planning process. Through e-tourism, travelers can research destinations, plan trips, book accommodations, purchase transportation tickets, and explore tourist attractions through online resources. Also, this area helps tourism businesses to effectively promote their services, communicate with clients and manage reservations. E-tourism represents the integration of information and communication technologies in the tourism sector. This concept encompasses the application of digital technologies such as the Internet, mobile applications, online reservation systems, web platforms and social media to improve aspects of travel and tourism. The legal foundation of educational procedures utilizing artificial intelligence algorithms in e-tourism holds significant importance because of the multitude of potential legal complexities and obstacles that could emerge. The Republic of Serbia, like many other countries, is working on improving its regulations in order to enable the development of e-tourism and at the same time ensure the protection of the interests and safety of travelers.

The Role of Technology in Travel Journalism: The Albanian Case

Digitalization has affected the specialization of travel journalism, but has brought opportunities and many new challenges. Travel journalism is now everywhere, with multimedia capabilities, personalization, interactivity, hypertext stories, virtuality, etc. The role of technology has already broken-down the traditional media monopoly, as the ability of Web 2.0 has enabled anyone to give rise to a customed media, create and distribute content, where travel journalists now thanks to different platforms allow users and travelers to plan trips, share their experiences instantly with a wide audience and react to stories published by others. In this article will examine how this genre is developing in Albania, specifically because our country is experiencing a touristic boom, but also thanks to the technology development. It will be perceived how tourism has re-dimensioned and updated this journalistic genre, through qualitative interviews of actors in the field, where through them will get to know the challenges and perspectives. Received: 25 December 2023 / Accepted: 25 February 2024 / Published: 23 April 2024

Adapting Transportation Planning e-Tools to Older Adults’ Needs: Scoping Review

Aging is often accompanied by a decrease in physical and sensory capacities and financial resources, which makes travel and the use of public transport a big challenge for older adults. These mobility limitations may prevent them from going out for groceries, medical appointments, or entertainment, which increases the risk of social isolation. A key element in helping older adults to maintain healthy aging and social engagement is to foster autonomy, freedom, and active mobility. A transportation planning e-tool can provide older adults with information about transport and trip options. There are many transportation planning e-tools, but little is known about whether and how their characteristics and functionalities address older adults' needs and preferences. This study aims to map existing transportation e-tools and identify gaps to be filled in order to match their functionalities with older adults' needs and preferences. A scoping review of existing transportation planning e-tools was conducted based on the approach developed by Arksey and O'Malley. A search in the scientific literature (Academic Search Complete, MEDLINE, CINAHL, SocINDEX, and ERIC) as well as gray literature (TRID Database, Google Scholar, Proquest, Google Play, etc) was conducted in June 2020 and updated 3 times; in September 2021, December 2021, and May 2022. After the studies were selected, a comparative analysis was performed by 2 evaluators; an occupational therapy student and a computer science student. These e-tools were analyzed with respect to some characteristics (eg, tool's development status, target customers, and geographic coverage) as well as 10 functionalities (time autonomy, walkability, crowd avoidance, incline avoidance, weather consideration, dark avoidance, winter obstacles avoidance, amenities inclusion, taxi driver's information, and support affordance) that we defined based on older adults' needs and preferences (mainly Canadians). These needs were identified from a literature review and confirmed by workshops (focus groups). The scientific and gray literature search yielded 463 sources, and 42 transportation e-tools were included. None of the e-tools reviewed addresses all 10 functionalities. More specifically, functionalities such as dark avoidance and support affordance were not addressed by any of the included e-tools. Most of the e-tools currently available to plan trips do not address older adults' needs and preferences. The results of this scoping review helped fill this gap by identifying functionalities to include in transportation planning e-tools designed to promote active aging. The findings of this study highlight the need to use a multicriteria optimization algorithm to address older adults' mobility needs and preferences. RR2-10.2196/33894.

The influence of the Crown of Polish Mountains on the attitudes of its ascensionists

Abstract The aim of this article is to identify the changes in the (intra- and interpersonal) attitudes of experienced travellers after climbing the highest peaks of the 28 mountain ranges in Poland. The survey was conducted on 617 members of the Club of the Ascensionists of the Crown of Polish Mountains. The respondents provided subjective evaluations of the changes in their attitudes (in nine proposed areas) that resulted from regular mountain hikes. The obtained results demonstrated a significant improvement in the practical skills related to mountain climbing, which was greater than the change in attitudes to other people and the physical condition of the respondents. The most significant changes concerned knowledge of Polish mountains, ability to plan trips, and persistence in pursuing goals. Statistically significant differences were also found between the ages, genders, and frequency of trips (in particular in reference.

The Daughter of Isis at Duke University

The Daughter of Isis at Duke University

Editorial Special Issue on AI Innovations in Intelligent Transportation Systems

Regardless of whether we are living in smart cities or not smart cities, the technologies involved in organizing and planning for smart transportation systems are already in use including smart sensors, controlled actuators, and other sensing and action devices along with massive information collected on logistics, routing, vehicles, passengers, mapping, and planning. The use of these technologies and many other associative technologies including smart connected vehicles and traffic forecasting systems are contributing to the development of a sustainable transport system that can have minimal incidents. However, these technologies did not solve most of the traffic congestions nor be able to use a mobility single interface to plan trips as well as to integrate more smart algorithms for efficient traffic management.

Non-Visual Access to an Interactive 3D Map.

Maps are indispensable for helping people learn about unfamiliar environments and plan trips. While tactile (2D) and 3D maps offer non-visual map access to people who are blind or visually impaired (BVI), this access is greatly enhanced by adding interactivity to the maps: when the user points at a feature of interest on the map, the name and other information about the feature is read aloud in audio. We explore how the use of an interactive 3D map of a playground, containing over seventy play structures and other features, affects spatial learning and cognition. Specifically, we perform experiments in which four blind participants answer questions about the map to evaluate their grasp of three types of spatial knowledge: landmark, route and survey. The results of these experiments demonstrate that participants are able to acquire this knowledge, most of which would be inaccessible without the interactivity of the map.

Digital Marketing in Hospitality – Case Study of Social Networks as a Communication Toll in Oporto Hotels

Digital marketing and social networks are progressively becoming the most important communication tool in almost all business areas. This has considerably increased the information available online. In the tourism context, these developments have had a considerable effect, as they have altered the way tourists search for information, plan trips and share experiences.

Pengaruh Kualitas Informasi Dalam Ulasan Online dan Kualitas Situs Web Terhadap Kepercayaan Konsumen Pada Situs Web Perjalanan Wisata (Studi Pada Traveloka)

Travel websites are the choice of tourists to plan trips efficiently. One of the most popular travel and tour websites in Indonesia is Traveloka.com. Many obstacles and problems occur in an online business especially in terms of online consumer trust, Traveloka.com is no exception. This study aims to assess the information quality of reviews on the website, the quality of the website, customers' trust in the website, and finally the effect of information quality and website quality on online trust. This research uses a quantitative approach. The research questionnaire was distributed to 272 Traveloka.com consumers. The results found that the quality of information, website quality, and online trust of Traveloka.com consumers are at a good level. Moreover, there is a simultaneous and partial influence of the information quality in online reviews and the website quality on the customers' online trust of the Traveloka.com website by contributing a value of 29.6%.

Travel Buddy: Travel Companion using Knowledge Graph Attention Networks

Tourism has always been an important sector in India. With industries gradually moving to the internet, the travel and tourism industry has followed suit, but still, it has failed to provide a full-fledged online solution for travellers or businesses. The objective of this paper is to create an all-in-one travelling application, Travel Buddy, that will facilitate the online tourism industry using the Knowledge Graph Attention Network model for recommendations. The app focuses on user interactions and personalized recommendations. The customer, i.e., the traveller can plan trips, compare hotels, reserve rooms and get relevant assistance during the trip along with personalized recommendations on each step. This app will give the customers curated suggestions and make their experience more memorable. It also features a community section for travellers with similar interests to interact through blogs. It acts as a medium for travel agencies to showcase their packages and local tourism-related businesses to list their business. The proposed system demonstrates this app that accommodates both the users and provides good quality recommendations using the state-of-the-art KGAT model.

Walking together, alone during the pandemic

Being in the field is frequently at the centre of geographical pedagogy. We plan trips, tours and expeditions to explore, understand and be in the territory that interests us. In the past we may ha...

Benchmarking data mining approaches for traveler segmentation

The purpose of this study is proposing a hybrid data mining solution for traveler segmentation in tourism domain which can be used for planning user-oriented trips, arranging travel campaigns or similar services. Data set used in this work have been provided by a travel agency which contains flight and hotel bookings of travelers. Initially, the data set was prepared for running data mining algorithms. Then, various machine learning algorithms were benchmarked for performing accurate traveler segmentation and prediction tasks. Fuzzy C-means and X-means algorithms were applied for clustering user data. J48 and multilayer perceptron (MLP) algorithms were applied for classifying instances based on segmented user data. According to the findings of this study, J48 has the most effective classification results when applied on the data set which is clustered with X-means algorithm. The proposed hybrid data mining solution can be used by travel agencies to plan trip campaigns for similar travelers.

Online communication of accessibility conditions in touristic spots: the design–communication gap in Porto destination

论游客景区中无障碍条件的在线宣传：波尔图旅游地的设计-宣传差异研究目的为残疾游客设计出无障碍旅游地是非常重要的。然而, 为了吸引这部分游客市场, 有效地在线宣传提供的无障碍条件也是非常重要的。本论文分析为残疾游客提供的无障碍设施的在线宣传, 以讨论旅游地是否存在设计-宣传差异。研究设计/方法/途径本论文分析了葡萄牙波尔图城市游客景点的无障碍设施。本论文还分析了这些景点网站对于无障碍设施的描述。本论文采用文本分析方法, 对这些网站内容进行分析, 验证是否为残疾游客提供的无障碍设施如网上宣传介绍一直。研究结果研究结果表明, 景点网站针对残疾游客的内容太过笼统, 并没有介绍景区提供的全部无障碍设施。研究原创性/价值本论文展示了无障碍旅游地设计与其网站宣传之间的差异。这将对残疾人造成障碍, 尤其是那些通过在线信息来确立旅游计划的游客, 他们无法在网络上找到全部关于提供的无障碍设施的信息。这将阻碍景点定位为全包容性旅游目的地, 影响其无障碍旅游竞争力。本论文推荐无障碍景点设计应该有一个更好的在线宣传。

SEASONALITY OF LITHUANIAN NATURE TOURISM: VISITOR‘S PREFERENCES

Seasonality in the tourism sector is described as a change in tourism due to seasonal changes or a temporary change in tourist flows. In Lithuania, the tourism seasonality is recognized as a problem requiring a solution. This study has identified that every visitor/traveller who likes nature, prefers nature-based tourism or has plans to spend some time in nature is facing the tourism seasonality in Lithuania. The results of this survey support the idea that the most popular time for nature trips in Lithuania is summer time or the warm light season of the year. There are several reasons why visitors wish to go out to nature: many visitors hope to get good quality and exciting entertainment or educations, others are expecting for nature's aesthetic and other values, including beautiful landscapes and fresh air. Lithuanians usually choose nature trips with family or friends travelling by car for an average 3-7 days. The most of survey respondents plan trips in advance, search for information on the Internet, social networks, or use the recommendations of friends to visit one or another natural object, and almost do not use the services of tourism companies. Interest in one or another natural object and its attendance is primarily determined by weather conditions, activities and educations adapted to the exact season. This survey has shown that people wishing to choose non-seasonal natural tourism facing many problems. Depending on the season, tourism infrastructure could be more suited to all seasons, as well as respondents expect new educations adapted to different seasons or their indoor alternatives. In the recent years, more frequent extreme climate periods (heat, rainfall in summer, cold or wet periods in winter) have begun to change, most often reduce, visitor flows.

Group trip planning and information seeking behaviours by mobile social media users: A study of tourists in Australia, Bangladesh and China

Social media plays an increasingly important role in travel information seeking and decision-making. However, there is limited understanding of how a group of tourists use social media to plan trips collaboratively and the different practices between countries. In this study, we investigated the collaborative information seeking (CIS) and sharing behaviours of mobile social media users from Australia, Bangladesh and China. Specifically, we surveyed a total of 219 participants to explore the differences in CIS behaviours when people were planning a group trip. The findings suggest significant differences among three countries in terms of the motivations of using social media, CIS activities and social interactions outside the group. Key findings include Bangladeshi and Chinese travellers preferred known contacts on social media, while Australian tourists intended to use both known contacts and user-generated contents for seeking information. The findings also show that social interactions employed by individuals are considered as an important complement of and are interwoven with in-group CIS; both contribute to tourism information seeking. Finally, we propose a framework for CIS research in the tourism domain.

The framework accommodation of systems recommendation via social media

Tourists can plan trips using social media and other information sources found on the internet. However, to get information takes more time and efficient less. Recommendation systems have been developed to solve this problem. This research proposes the two-way relationship framework for the accommodation of systems recommendation using the hybrid method. To implementing the two-way relationship framework, this research is divided into two main architectural frameworks, the text processing architecture and the component system recommendation architecture. Focus this research for the framework component recommendations, where the decision-making process within the framework of two-way relationships using the hybrid method. The two-way relationship framework is probably to provide impression for the accommodation of system recommendation that can be developed and implemented in future research.

Implementing k-means clustering algorithm in collaborative trip advisory and planning system

Fueled by the help of the Internet, more and more tourists nowadays tend to plan trips by themselves in order to have trip plans that meet their preferences and convenience perfectly. However, tourists may face some problems when they plan a trip by themselves, which makes the whole trip planning process challenging and tiring. These problems include extensive tourism information, manually constructing an itinerary for a trip and difficulty in satisfying the needs of all trip participants. Therefore, a web-based trip planning system is proposed in this project to solve all these problems in order to help tourists in planning their desired trips more effectively and efficiently. This system will help users to search for attractions and restaurants in Southeast Asian countries faster by providing filtering and prioritizing features. This system also facilitates the decision-making process of tourists when choosing places to visit and restaurants by utilizing the power of word-of-mouth (reviews). Besides, this system will aid tourists by reducing the need to manually construct the itinerary for a trip. The k-means clustering algorithm will be used to auto-arrange the trip itinerary to ensure places close to each other are arranged to be visited on the same day so that tourists can save on unnecessary transport costs and time. Lastly, this system promotes collaborative trip planning by providing a platform for all the participants in a trip to discuss and plan their trip together.

Predictors of visitors’ climate-related coping behaviors in a nature-based tourism destination

Abstract: Climate change affects the supply of nature-based tourism opportunities as well as the demand visitors place on those opportunities. Climate-induced changes in visitor demand, specifically climate-related coping behaviors (e.g., seeking safer recreation sites, changing trip timing, using weather forecasts to plan trips), are influenced by multiple factors such as season of visit, specific visitor attributes, and general climate change beliefs and concern. Understanding the relationships between visitor characteristics and coping behaviors within the context of a changing climate will help recreation managers and tourism providers anticipate shifts in demand and adapt strategically. In this study, we present results from a series of binary logistic regression models of summer and winter visitor survey data to examine climate-related coping behaviors within a regional nature-based tourism area (the North Shore region of Lake Superior in Minnesota). Findings reveal that winter recreationists, younger visitors, and visitors who are concerned about climate change, are most inclined to use behavioral coping in response to changing climate and environmental conditions. Specifically, we found that winter season recreationists are much more likely to report having experienced a past climate-related impact, and that weather information, alternative gear, and flexibility in timing their trips are important in overcoming these constraints. Further, younger visitors were more likely to use informational (weather forecast) coping, site substitution, and activity substitution to respond to climate-related impacts. This study expands upon climate-related recreation and tourism research by documenting how recreationists’ informational, spatial, and temporal coping behaviors vary across visitor characteristics. Further research is needed to determine if the behavioral coping preferences and patterns found in this study emerge across diverse contexts. However, our findings here can help managers begin to strategically plan and collaborate to maintain destination-level attractiveness to visitors despite changing environmental conditions. Management implications: Understanding how visitors respond to environmental changes is important in sustaining ‘weather-resistant’ visitor flows. In anticipation of on-site disruptions and future demand shifts, regional partnerships within nature-based destinations may mitigate reductions in visitor demand and accommodate shifting patterns in visitor flows. For example, recreation managers and tourism providers could identify and jointly market alternative recreation opportunities when conditions are not conducive to participating in desired activities, as well as develop a networked approach for communicating weather and site safety information.

IEEE Power and Energy Technology Systems Journal

Currently, the momentum toward full propulsion-system electrification is strong, and, along with an emphasis on renewable energy sources, a CO 2 -neutral passenger-vehicle future is more promising than ever. The best BEVs today are great vehicles for those willing to pay extra, willing to plan trips, and expecting to have more than one vehicle in the household. However, to make the BEVs replacements for today's ICE-powered vehicles for non-BEV enthusiasts, they must be better vehicles that offer better ownership experiences. GM, with its partners, is dedicated to developing the next generation of industry -leading BEVs and user -interfacing technologies to trigger the BEV tipping point. This is a large task, but GM has the talent, technology, and ambition to create a safer, better, more-sustainable future with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.