=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-404/paper-2
|storemode=property
|title=Making Pre-Trip Services Context-Aware
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-404/Paper1.pdf
|volume=Vol-404
}}
==Making Pre-Trip Services Context-Aware==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-404/Paper1.pdf
Making Pre-Trip Services Context-Aware
Christoph Grün
Institute of Software Technology and
Interactive Systems
Electronic Commerce Group
Vienna University of Technology,
Austria
christoph.gruen@ec.tuwien.ac.at
ABSTRACT of information about accommodation, points of interest (POIs)
(e.g., environmental and landscape attractions or gastronomy),
The process of selection, configuration and consumption of
weather forecasts, news or safety issues. Mobile services, i.e.,
tourist information services is a complex task for the user. services that can be used independently of temporal and spatial
This is not least since existing tools most often focus on constraints and that are accessed through a mobile handset, may
supporting either the pre- or post-trip phase or the on-trip address these issues. They have the task to satisfy information
phase itself by providing context-aware services. The goal requirements of tourists while being on the move by providing
of this thesis is to establish a framework that makes pre-trip them with a broad range of up-to-date, situation-specific
services context-aware, thus reducing the gap between the information. This information may be in addition adapted to the
pre-trip and on-trip phase by providing a single point of current situation of the user by exploiting user preferences, user
access. This is done by facilitating service selection and location as well as mobile handset capabilities.
configuration in the pre-trip phase and context-aware In the last years, research has been very active in each of the
service consumption in the on-trip phase. Its applicability phases of the tourist life cycle. Research in the pre- and post-trip
and feasibility will be proved by a working prototype and phase is closely linked to online travel communities [2], whereas
evaluated through field studies. the on-trip phase is targeted by research on location-based,
mobile tourist guides [8].
Categories and Subject Descriptors The goal of online tourism communities is the provision of up-to-
H4.m [Information Systems Applications]: Miscellaneous date, freely available tourism-related content, thereby enabling
members to collect, view and exchange data items such as blog
General Terms entries or pictures or to add own content and reviews. They
provide good support for the pre- and post-trip phases but fail to
Algorithms, Design, Human Factors.
support tourists sufficiently during the on-trip phase. A few
communities such as the Tripadvisor1 or the Yahoo Trip Planner2
Keywords enable their users to download or print the personal trip plan, but
tourist life cycle, customization, mobile tourist services, context- do not provide support to access this information in a way suitable
awareness for mobile phones. Support for dynamic, on-the-move
information is rare. Customization, i.e., adapting the information
1. Introduction content towards the current context, is missing at all. As they only
provide services which are useful before and after the trip and
Tourism is an information intensive business. Since tourism
which are not interlinked to the on-trip phase, tourists have to use
products are virtual products prior to consumption, travelers
other sources to satisfy their information requirements while they
depend heavily on tourism information. In the ideal case, tourism
are on vacation. Online tourism communities often provide
services should support tourists with travel-related information
personal trip planner tools (cf. e.g., [3]) that facilitate the time
during all phases (pre-trip, on-trip, post-trip phase) of the tourist
consuming planning process for tourists. They support tourists to
life cycle [9] (cf. Figure 1).
select destinations of interest, to decide on activities and compose
an itinerary.
Pre-Trip On-Trip Post-Trip Research with respect to the on-trip phase has resulted in a wide
range of mobile tourist guides. Since one of the first famous
prototypes [1], the sophistication of mobile guides has increased,
Figure 1. Travel experience - tourist life cycle and research in this field now specializes on features such as
In the pre-trip phase, tourists need information for planning personalization, recommendation, context-awareness together
purposes and decision making. After their trip, focus is on with new forms of user interaction, collaborative usage and social
reminiscing about the journey and sharing the gained impressions integration. They may provide lots of useful information within
and experiences with friends. In the on-trip phase, however,
tourists are mobile and act in unknown environments where they 1
http://www.tripadvisor.com/
would especially need personalized on-trip assistance in the form 2
http://travel.yahoo.com/trip/
their field of application. The drawback is that they do not fit personal requirements, thus resulting in value proposition and
consider information generated by tourists in the pre-trip phase. In user satisfaction. For this, we proposed a framework in [4],
this way, they a) do not incorporate existing user profiles (e.g., comprising the three dimensions service delivery, service
profile of community member), b) do not exploit knowledge customization and service initiation. The service delivery
extracted from the personal trip plan and c) do not know the dimension identifies different consumer processes how a user can
services the user is interested in and how these services should be satisfy her/his requirements. In the most simple form the user
delivered to fit the user’s requirements and current situation. receives information about objects of interests. The transaction
process allows the user to initiate transactional processes. The
In the current state, there is a perceptible gap between the community process enhances the service with features enabling
respective phases of the tourist life cycle, resulting in the need for
social integration. The distribution process enables the user to
tourists to use different sources to satisfy the information
receive a digital product, such as maps or guides that can be
requirements in each phase, ranging from travel communities,
downloaded to the device.
mobile applications, Internet websites, destination portals, meta-
search & booking engines to traditional guide books. A single The customisation dimension expresses to which extent the
point of access that provides all the relevant services is still a information sent to the user is customized to fit the requirements
preferable future state. of the respective user by taking into account various context
factors.
2. Goal & Use Case Concerning the initiation of delivery, services can be classified
The goal of this thesis is to make pre-trip services context-aware, into pull and push services. Pull services are characterized by a
thus reducing the gap between the pre-trip and on-trip phase by user-triggered search whereas push services deliver information to
providing a single point of access for these two phases (cf. Figure the user automatically.
2). For example, the user can select the weather service and configure
it to push (service initiation) the up-to-date weather forecast
(service delivery) every morning to the mobile device of the user,
Pre-Trip On-Trip filtered to the destination of the user (customization).
Since a mobile device suffers from several limitations, e.g., small
screen and network connection with low bandwidth, it is
Figure 2. Integration of Pre- & On-Trip Phase important to limit the amount of information that is presented to
In the pre-trip phase, tourists should have the possibility to select the tourist so that he or she can obtain the essential information in
and configure those tourist services that appear useful to them a non-intrusive way. After all, the mobile device should function
later in the on-trip phase. In the on-trip phase, the pre-configured as an assistive tool for the current task (e.g., sightseeing) and
services can then provide personal information that is tailored to should not require full attention of the user. To fulfill this
the current situation and requirements of the tourist and presented purpose, an automation of service delivery and decision making is
on the mobile device of the user. required. This is done based on the definition and evaluation of
rules that may partly be defined by the tourist. These rules are
In the following, this visionary goal is presented by describing checked by the VTA in order to deliver only relevant information,
possible scenarios from a tourist’s point of view. The vision might leading to a more fulfilling user experience. For example, the
include many assumptions. We want to point out that it is not goal tourist can define the rule that the VTA should contact him/her in
of this PhD to work on all these visionary service descriptions, security-related issues, e.g., he or she booked a flight to a country
but some of them will be realized within a working prototype. The where an earthquake happened (security issue), so that he or she
envisioned system is called virtual tourist agent (VTA) since it can decide to re-book the flight to another destination. In case of
should provide tourists the same comfort as if they would call re-booking, the VTA may automatically cancel the
their personal travel agent at home to satisfy their information accommodation booking on behalf of the user (if he defined
requirements. another rule concerning this issue).
The show case gives some impression how the support of tourists On-Trip Phase
in the pre-trip phase and during the vacation can be realized.
During the on-trip phase, tourists receive support from the VTA
Pre-Trip Phase based on the service selection and configuration done in the pre-
trip phase. This means that they obtain information from all the
In the pre-trip phase, tourists often do not plan all the activities services that have been configured to act in a push-based manner.
they intend to undertake in advance, they rather follow an Further, the situation of the tourist (comprising context factors
optimistic approach. For this, the VTA provides a trip-planner such as location, time, user profile and travel schedule) is
tool to establish a rough schedule that contains the cities/places constantly checked by the VTA to detect reactive situations [6],
they want to visit within a certain timeframe and the route thus requiring an action of the VTA. This can either be a change
between those places. Next, the tourists can identify and select all in context, such as an arrival at a new destination, or a new event
the tourist information services that they need later in the on-trip fired by a service, such as the announcement of a delay received
phase. Possible services include a flight information service, a from the flight information service. Possible actions include
tourist attraction service or a weather service. In [4], we showed a pushing this information to the user or acting on behalf of the user
classification of these services and came up with a list of 12 based on rules defined in the pre-trip phase. For example the VTA
generic tourist information services. Next, the tourist can might detect that tourists arrive at the booked hotel not in time
configure those services with respect to delivery aspects that best and automatically informs the hotel about their late arrival.
Another example might be the case that tourists plan a bicycle are used in real situations or that have been tested in the field. The
tour on a specific day during their vacation. The VTA informs evaluation results show that most of the services are provided by
them that the weather forecast might be bad this day and instead mobile tourist guides, while pointing out clearly that there is a
suggest them indoor activities. Another case might be a planned large gap in the design of those services of the various tourist
mountain tour, e.g., on the vulcano Etna, situated on Sicily. The guides with respect to service delivery, service customization and
VTA can check whether it is allowed to go up on the Etna (it is service initiation.
still an active vulcano and dangerous eruptions may occur). In Several surveys on mobile tourist guides have already been
case that it is not, the VTA can suggest a tour on the vulcanos published that evaluate mobile tourist guides not in terms of
“Vulcano” or “Stromboli”, being part of the Aeolian Islands in the provided services but focusing more on the technical side such as
north of Sicily by exploiting knowledge from a respective architecture, user interaction or context-awareness. In [8], we
knowledge base. If a certain activity cannot be carried out at the presented a comprehensive overview and comparison of mobile
destination, based on reasons such as bad weather, closing hours tourist guides. The comparison is based on an evaluation
or long waiting lines, the VTA can look up the time frame framework that focuses on context and adaptation criteria. In this
planned for this activity in the trip schedule and suggest an equal way, this survey explores the capability of mobile tourist guides
activity instead. This shows that the travel schedule is an to provide customized services, i.e., services that can react to the
important source of knowledge next to traditional context factors context by adapting the information. The main statements are that
such as location, time or user profile. The tourists may also pull most systems use their own content databases and do not exploit
for information, such as querying the VTA for a nice beach to go the potential of incorporating external content, e.g., through
for swimming. The VTA can present a personalized list of nice standardized interfaces such as web services. Most approaches
beaches. only consider location and user profile as context factors, while
neglecting other ones, such as time or network. Moreover, the
3. State of the Art potential of combining context properties to derive more valuable
In the following, we report on state of the art in e-tourism by logical information is not exploited.
discussing research on online travel communities that focus
mainly on the pre- and post trip phase and research in the field of 4. Methodology
mobile tourist guides, covering the on-trip phase. As already mentioned, the goal of this work is to find a
Concerning online travel communities, we evaluated in [2] eight satisfactory solution for making pre-trip services context-aware.
travel communities with respect to Web 2.0. This evaluation To reach this goal, an approach based on the design-science
assesses services of travel communities within the context of the paradigm (cf. e.g., Hevner et al (2004)) is used. The design-
tourist life cycle. In the pre-trip phase, tourists have to cope with a science paradigm seeks to create knowledge and understanding of
large amount of unstructured information. Different search a problem domain and its solution through the building and
functionalities, e.g., destination browsing, are needed to support application of innovative design artifacts. Thereby, artifacts are
tourists during the information search. Some communities, e.g., defined not only as the resulting instantiations (working
Yahoo Trip Planner or the Virtualtourist platform3 enable the prototype), but also comprise constructs (vocabulary), models
aggregation of relevant trip information for later on-trip assistance (abstractions & representations) and methods (algorithms &
by letting users create a personal trip plan. The relevant trip practices) applied in the development as well. To demonstrate the
information, i.e., entries for travel location, may either stem from applicability and feasibility of this work, the VTA system will be
third party providers or from other community members. In most implemented as a working prototype. For its development, several
cases, the personal travel plan can only be printed or downloaded other design artifacts are needed that will be outlined in detail in
as PDF document to be used in the on-trip phase. Only a few section 5. These artifacts further contribute to the knowledge in
communities provide access to mobile services. Travelpod4, for the field of e-tourism. The goal of design-science research is to
example, supports travelers through a mobile blogging address unsolved problems in innovative ways and to address
application. Lonely Planet5 offers the functionality of solved problems in more effective and efficient ways. This goal is
downloading customized, targeted travel guides. In 2003, it targeted by this thesis through an innovative approach that
launched CityPicks OTA downloadable travel guides together facilitates service selection, configuration and consumption
with Nokia. Recently, it launched, with Orange as partner, a WAP through a single point of access. The effectiveness and utility of
portal that provides chargeable travel information services. the VTA prototype will be assessed by a field study with tourists
In [4], we provided a classification of mobile tourist services that and compared to other systems that target the pre- or on-trip phase
can be grouped into 13 service categories. Further, a conceptual in isolation.
framework is given that shows different design dimensions how
those mobile services can be designed and delivered to tourists in 5. Research Contribution
order to generate value proposition and user satisfaction. This The main contribution is the design of a conceptual framework
framework is then applied to mobile tourist guides that have been and the prototypical implementation of the VTA system. Thereby,
developed in the last few years, with focus on those systems that it is not the goal to implement each component from scratch, but
to implement the whole system by heavily reusing and combining
existing tools. Figure 3 illustrates the architecture of the VTA
3
http://www.virtualtourist.com/ system. In the following, the architecture is explained by
4 describing its components and listing research tasks that have to
http://www.travelpod.com/ be addressed to develop the whole system.
5
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/
In the pre-trip phase the user can select and configure all relevant Personal trip planner tool
service types and choose the adequate service providers from In the pre-trip phase, the VTA needs to include a trip planner tool
which the data is obtained during the on-trip phase. The service that assists in trip planning. A survey has to be done to select a
instances abstract from the different application programming promising trip planner tool that can be integrated within the VTA.
interfaces (APIs) of the service providers and are linked over a The trip planner of the destination portal of New Zealand6 seems
standardized interface to the respective service type. For example, to be a good starting point.
the service type “weather” can access weather service providers
using different technologies, ranging from SOAP and restful web Business Services & Service Registry
services to RSS feeds and finally to wrappers that extract the data In our previous work [4], we showed a classification of tourist
from the provider’s website if an API is not available. The services that are of high value to tourists being on the move. Of
different symbols of the service providers act as representatives course not all of these service types can be addressed within our
for the different technologies that can be used to access the data. working prototype. We did an expert survey in [7], where we
In the runtime phase, the VTA system exploits the situation of the asked 40 international experts in the academic and industrial field,
tourist and manages the states of the service providers in order to both with tourism and an ‘e-tourism’ background to rate the
detect changes that require an action on behalf of or sending some information services in terms of their relevance using a 6-point
information to the user. Likert-scale. Based on these results, we will implement promising
Pre-Trip Phase service types and provide the necessary interfaces to service
providers in order to access their data. All services are
semantically described and registered within a service registry.
Weather
Virtual Context Services and Context Manager
Tourist
Agent The framework provides access to different context factors such
On-Trip Phase System Accommodation Services
as location time or profile of the user that are provided by the
User system or by the user or even external context factors such as
Transport
weather information. As soon as a context change happens, either
triggered by the user (e.g., location change), by the system (e.g.,
tourism
time
Service Service
time) or by external providers (e.g., weather), the context manager
location user
situation Types Providers forwards this event to the rule engine.
Ontologies Context Rule Engine
Figure 3. Outline of the VTA architecture The rule engine consists of an inference engine and a dependency
checker. The inference engine takes the request from the user and
the events from the context manager and matches them with the
The main components of the VTA framework are described in the knowledge base that contains the situation of the user and his/her
following. For this, Figure 4 shows a high-level view on the travel plan. In this way, the inference engine uses axiomatic
components of this framework. Context-aware information knowledge in the knowledge base to derive new conclusions. For
systems have to derive meaningful information based on the example, when the context manager sends a bad weather event for
situation of the user. Ontologies are a promising technology to the next day, the rule engine checks all outdoor activities taking
model the situation of the user since they can represent the place next day and apply some actions on them based on
knowledge in a semantically rich kind and are therefore a central predefined rules (such as canceling those actions). The activities
part of the system. in the travel plan show complex dependencies amongst each
other. For example, if the user plans to stay at a certain
destination for another day in order to attend a concert (new
activity), this new activity might be dependent on the possibility
Adaptation
to stay another night in the booked hotel. If the user already
Manager booked a hotel at another destination for this day, this has to be
canceled as well. It is the task of the dependency checker to
Registration
Rule Engine
Workflow monitor coherent activities.
Manager Manager
Workflow Manager
Context Service
Manager Registry
The workflow manager encapsulates all different services as
workflow components. The workflow manager receives from the
rule engine the information about those services that have to be
Context Services Business Services called in order to perform the actions defined in the rule engine
•Location •Hotels and composes the respective services to a workflow (e.g., cancel
•Time •Events hotel, send confirmation in form of SMS to the user).
•Weather •Tourist Attractions
•User Profile •Sightseeing Tours
Travel Plan
Ontology Layer
Figure 4. Components of the VTA system
6
http://www.newzealand.com/
6. Future Work Itinerary Planning System for Holiday Travel. Information
Future work concentrates on detailing the architecture and the Technology & Tourism, Vol. 6(3), 195-210.
necessary components. Based on the design decisions, e.g., [4] Grün, C., Pröll, B., Retschitzegger, W., Schwinger, W.,
heavy-weight vs. light-weight client, existing tools, middleware Werthner, H. (2008). Assisting Tourists on the Move - An
and frameworks have to be selected that facilitate the design of Evaluation of Mobile Tourist Guides. Submitted for the 7th
the conceptual architecture and the implementation of the International Conference on Mobile Business. Barcelona,
resulting prototype. Surveys are needed to select the suitable tools Spain.
and adapt them in a later step for our work. The system will be
[5] Hevner, A., March, S., Park, J. and Ram, S. 2004 Design
implemented based on a rapid prototypical approach, which
Science in Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly,
allows testing the prototype in small, iterative steps in order to get
Vol 28, Num 1, pp 75-105.
fast feedback for further improving the prototype.
[6] O’Brien, P. (2006). An Architecture for Ubiquitous Mobile
Service Delivery. PhD Thesis. The School of Information
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