More and more people look for online information about the desired travel destinations. While well-known destinations have plenty of information and recommendations, minor cultural sites are not easily identifiable: if we search for 'ipogeo' (in English ‘hypogeum’: from Greek hypógheios, it is an ancient underground construction, mostly used as a tomb – source: Wikipedia), thousands of results are found in Google while only three in Europeana map – perhaps in both cases, it turns out to be simply a waste of time. The so-called 'Recommender Systems' have been developed to cope with this problem; however, they require a considerable amount of data, so new destinations are rarely promoted having no ratings. A subset of such systems are the 'Travel Advisor Systems', working mainly in the field of hotel services - usually there is a 'thing to do' section containing places suggested by users, with the result of converging on well-known destinations. A review of some systems also showed the presence of errors in localizing cultural destinations – among others: Italian Touring Club, World Heritage Map and TripAdvisor (fig.1). There is the need for a system that provides people with authoritative and correctly localized information, an equivalent of ‘TripAdvisor’ which, instead of hotel facilities, focuses attention on cultural attractors, including less known sites. To this aim, we are designing 'MU.S.A. - Must See Advisor', a tool able to assist people in finding places that suit their needs and which would allow them to provide and share comments, through a database built progressively with the contribution of different stakeholders (i.e. tourists, touristic operators, public entities). The system will focus on two main aspects: - 'Knowledge', to enhance data from Municipalities with parameters as geographical location and accessibility, type, state of preservation, hygiene, safety of the area, public transport and parking availability; if applicable: opening period and hours, entrance fees, minimum visiting time, maximum daily visitors number. The activities will be carried out through specific projects involving upper secondary schools together with municipalities, coordinated by the National Association of Italian Municipalities - 'Technology', to develop tools ('open data' and 'open source' oriented) including: 1) an 'advisory assistant' supporting the assignment of the above parameters - with particular attention to accessibility - and data-entry; 2) an 'advisory system', for laptops and mobile devices, able to suggest places taking into account the geographical location, the parameters and user profiles - with the possibility to make use of comments left by previous visitors or simple tags "like / not like" - also providing a preview of the sites with geo-localized photos and virtual tours. In addition, a reappropriation of cultural values and an increased visibility of less known cultural assets, with potential positive impact on local tourism activities, will be achieved. The system design is aimed at collecting funds from one of the public systems of fund raising and crowd-funding; the system could be also supported by advertising on mobile devices during its operational phase.
'MU.S.A. - MUst See Advisor' Project: A cultural heritage booster
BUONO, PAOLO;
2014-01-01
Abstract
More and more people look for online information about the desired travel destinations. While well-known destinations have plenty of information and recommendations, minor cultural sites are not easily identifiable: if we search for 'ipogeo' (in English ‘hypogeum’: from Greek hypógheios, it is an ancient underground construction, mostly used as a tomb – source: Wikipedia), thousands of results are found in Google while only three in Europeana map – perhaps in both cases, it turns out to be simply a waste of time. The so-called 'Recommender Systems' have been developed to cope with this problem; however, they require a considerable amount of data, so new destinations are rarely promoted having no ratings. A subset of such systems are the 'Travel Advisor Systems', working mainly in the field of hotel services - usually there is a 'thing to do' section containing places suggested by users, with the result of converging on well-known destinations. A review of some systems also showed the presence of errors in localizing cultural destinations – among others: Italian Touring Club, World Heritage Map and TripAdvisor (fig.1). There is the need for a system that provides people with authoritative and correctly localized information, an equivalent of ‘TripAdvisor’ which, instead of hotel facilities, focuses attention on cultural attractors, including less known sites. To this aim, we are designing 'MU.S.A. - Must See Advisor', a tool able to assist people in finding places that suit their needs and which would allow them to provide and share comments, through a database built progressively with the contribution of different stakeholders (i.e. tourists, touristic operators, public entities). The system will focus on two main aspects: - 'Knowledge', to enhance data from Municipalities with parameters as geographical location and accessibility, type, state of preservation, hygiene, safety of the area, public transport and parking availability; if applicable: opening period and hours, entrance fees, minimum visiting time, maximum daily visitors number. The activities will be carried out through specific projects involving upper secondary schools together with municipalities, coordinated by the National Association of Italian Municipalities - 'Technology', to develop tools ('open data' and 'open source' oriented) including: 1) an 'advisory assistant' supporting the assignment of the above parameters - with particular attention to accessibility - and data-entry; 2) an 'advisory system', for laptops and mobile devices, able to suggest places taking into account the geographical location, the parameters and user profiles - with the possibility to make use of comments left by previous visitors or simple tags "like / not like" - also providing a preview of the sites with geo-localized photos and virtual tours. In addition, a reappropriation of cultural values and an increased visibility of less known cultural assets, with potential positive impact on local tourism activities, will be achieved. The system design is aimed at collecting funds from one of the public systems of fund raising and crowd-funding; the system could be also supported by advertising on mobile devices during its operational phase.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
