A SURVEY ON EXISTING TOURISM ONTOLOGIES

Abstract

Many studies have been conducted, to indicate extensive use of Tourism websites by vacation planners, to analyze travel related information and data. Semantic web technologies have been used extensively to build and enhance Analytical Engines for tourism industry over the past decade. Various Ontologies, as a powerful knowledge base, have been used for representing the various tourism concepts. These Ontologies can then be further integrated to handle the much needed requirements of resolving the heterogeneity problems arising in e-tourism. On the Flip-side, this integration of Ontologies may complicate the whole task of simplifying the search for the relevant e-tourism data. This survey paper intends to explore all dimensions of publicly available tourism Ontologies, and put-forth a new area of research, to identify and mitigate the shortcomings of existing Ontologies and there integration.