Mobile Applications for e-Tourism

Abstract

More and more people are using smartphones and other mobile devices as their main means for information access. This is especially true for travelers, and mobile applications supporting them have become very popular in the last years. This chapter first introduces basic concepts and technologies that are important for mobile applications for e-Tourism. After a brief historical overview, we then discuss issues regarding the development of mobile applications, such as determining the context of users with sensors. We also explain basic principles of user modeling and personalization and mobile user interfaces. The second main part of the chapter classifies and outlines existing mobile applications for travel and tourism. We introduce a taxonomy that reflects a traveler’s journey from vacation planning until concluding the trip. This includes applications that assist users in finding destinations; searching for and booking hotels, events, and activities; and identifying other travel-related items. A more specific scenario is the search for points of interest (POIs) that a user can visit during a trip. Modern e-Tourism applications allow browsing and filtering relevant POIs and can combine them to interesting and practical itineraries. In addition, we present applications for social networking, entertainment in e-Tourism, and others that are frequently used by tourists.