A Hybrid Deep Reinforcement Learning and Metaheuristic Framework for Heritage Tourism Route Optimization in Warin Chamrap’s Old Town

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, your text is a lengthy one but is of importance for tourism operation managers. I would suggest you to further develop the issue with application developers and software engineers. If you can develeop heritage-based route planning system that can be linked with google mapping that could change the future of heritage visitor experiences. The point is visits with large groups, mini-groups, or individual visits can be different. In near future carbon emission prpblem will be minimized but energy use rate will be important during visits. I would recommend you develop cocnlusion sections for readers whre you can compertmentalize the section as insights for tourism professionnals, local government managers like municipality officers, tourism academia, IT professionals, visitors/tourists so that every stakeholder can see what outcomes are there for them in the research. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

(1) The abstract and introduction mention "secondary heritage cities" many times. What does this concept refer to in the text? Is there any universal concept adopted internationally?
(2) The problem reflected in Figure 1 is very prominent. In the previous chapter, do group tours in Warin Chamrap’s Old Town or in Thailand need to deal with problems like Figure 1? Or are they just obtained based on certain data? There is not enough explanation here.
(3) The relevant formulas of Multi-Objective Functions still need to be further supplemented. First of all, are these formulas obtained from ref or modified by the author? What are the specific meanings of the letters in this study? How are they applied to this study?
(4) Architecture in Figure 2 should be expressed as "structure".
(5) Case Study: Heritage-Tour Planning in Warin Chamrap’s Old Town is mentioned in Chapter 4.4. It appears a bit late. This belongs to the scope of research and should be in the same chapter as the methodology. The results are usually discussed later. The main introduction of Warin Chamrap’s Old Town and the uniqueness of this case can be moved to the previous methodology.
(6) Figure 5 also shows some three-dimensional blocks. What does this difference mean?
(7) The article mentions the model framework for developing DRL-IMVO-GAN many times. However, as far as GAN is concerned, it is more inclined to training research on two-dimensional graphics, and there are fewer explanations and manifestations in the article. It is not clear how it is used specifically? At the same time, if it is determined that GAN is to be integrated into the framework, the literature review should also explain the research results related to GAN.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a lengthy contribution (a total of 49 pages), which means a contribution with more extensive content than is typical in a standard article, with the resulting content overload for the typical reader of an academic contribution of this type. This characteristic, in my view, requires some caution to prevent that same reader from getting lost amidst the profusion of arguments, data, and algebraic expressions included in this text.

In contrast to the extensive content, the introduction's sparseness is surprising: barely a page, which is practically spent on a brief background, a short paragraph-length presentation of the gaps identified in the content: a review so brief that it practically amounts to an enumeration. The responses to the shortcomings proposed in this article are also brief and summary. At this point, I would ask you to be more assertive, to explain more clearly the effects of the deficiencies you identified within the framework of prior knowledge, as well as in the explanation of the proposed solutions, and, connecting with what was stated in the first paragraph of this assessment, to present the sections into which you structure this work, with a brief description of each of these.

The overall structure of the paper presents some imbalances that the authors should consider. Sections of reasonable length coexist (section 2, referring to academic literature, is a clear example, with relevant content and a reasonable division into subsections, as are sections 3 and 6), with others of minimal length (the aforementioned introduction), and with others that are excessively long: this is the case of section 4, which should be substantially shorter.

The methodology, section 4, has a total of 19 pages. An enormous length for an article that focuses on a specific case, a medium-sized Thai city. What you propose is more suited to a general study, using simulated data to pose plausible scenarios, rather than to an empirical study. Perhaps this is my main criticism of this contribution, so I would place more emphasis on the appropriateness of the proposed model to the case study. Thus, sections 4.1 to 4.3 should be presented in summary form and without such exhaustive definitions of the variables used in the model.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has solved the problems in the previous round.