Use of the Multi-Agent Paradigm in Sustainable Tourism

Abstract

Complex systems are characterised by a huge amount of components, which are highly linked with each other. Tourism is one of the examples of complex systems collecting various activities leading to the enrichment of travellers in the view of receiving new experiences and increasing economic prosperity of specific destinations. The complex systems can be investigated with various bottom-up and top-down approaches. The multi-agent-based modelling is the bottom-up approach that is focused on the representation of individual entities for the exploration of possible interactions among them and their effects on surrounding environments. These systems are able to integrate knowledge of socio-cultural, economic, physical, biological or environmental systems for in-silico models development, which can be used for experimentation with a system. The main aim of the presented text is to introduce links between tourism, complexity and to advocate usefulness of the multi-agent-based systems for the exploration of tourism and its sustainability. The evaluation of suitability of the multi-agent systems in tourism is based on the investigation of fundamental characteristics of these two systems and on the review of specific applications of the multi-agent systems in sustainable tourism.