On-site Trip Planning Support System Based on Dynamic Information on Tourism Spots

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I liked your ideas in the paper very much and I think it is of an overall good quality. However, there are some points, which absolutely must be changed (critical points) and some, which may be changed in order to improve the paper (remarks). Most points refer to the introduction and the tourism theory part of your paper.

Critical points:

• The authors use the word "tourism planning" in the title and multiple times throughout the paper. "Tourism planning" refers to the planning of tourism from a destination perspective. As such tourism planning deals with building infrastructure, tourism staff management, planning theory, destination management, ... . Please change "tourism planning" to for example "itinerary planning" or "trip planning" throughout the whole paper, as this is what the authors refer to in the paper.
• The introduction there are several assumptions on tourism, which are not supportet by tourism sciences. Please rework the chapter carefully and pay special attention to the works of many tourism scholars. Especially consider the following points:
• line 22-23: You describe one kind of tourism here. Visiting sights and travel around to attractive spots are only for some travellers necessary for a satisfying tourism experience. Please recheck tourism literature on that.
• line 32-33: This reads as an assumption. Please provide evidence; there is a lot of literature on mobility and travel preparation in tourism.
• Chapter 2.1: Please extend the descriptions of points 1-7 and specifically give examples for unfamiliar readers.
• line 120: You write that decisions are made on spot. Please support that statement with literature!
• Please discuss if you system is of use outside of Japan (as you have specific points like Japaneseness involved in your app) and if yes, what adaptions have to be made
• The number of participants in the experiments is quite low. Further, there is a bias as the same persons conduct the experiment twice, first with the app and then later without. But then they are already familiar with the area?

Remarks:

• I feel like there is a "s" missing at the end of the title. Shouldn't it read ... on Tourism Spots?
• line 23-34: Please give examples on the "many existing works on recommendation systems"
• line 82: Shouldn't it read "have classified the recommendations"
• line 97: It was developed by whom?
• line 226: ... "such as"... How many are there in total? Please list all, if possible.
• line 252: How is that determined? Please describe.

Thank you for your time and effort!

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is very interesting for the design of smart touristic destination. The structure of the work is solid, starting with a critic review of previous method of dynamic information systems, following a original one, and developing a experiment for tested this method. I only have certain doubts over the design of this experiment, and i must highlight a lack that the authors must cover to improve the experiment. First, the authors presented two stages, one real and other simulated; both with an extremely small number of participants (18 and 8 respectively). Second, the methodology proposed two experiments in both stages: experiment one, with recommendations for tourism spots; experiment two, no tourism spot recommended.

Considering what was said above, my first doubt isrelated to the representativeness of the participants in the experiment regarding the turist type who arrive a Kyoto (remember the participants are very few). The second doubt has to do with the sequence of experiment, from my point of view the proper order is the reverse, avoiding problems with conditioned behavior.

For this reasons, I must recommend that they include information on the process followed to select the paticipants and, also, they should explay why the experiment were sequenced in this way.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Although this is an intersting study, the manuscript is rather poorly written and structured. The literature review does not contain a single source from the Tourism literature, so it is difficult to establish how this study can make a contribution to current knowledge in Tourism. Similarly, work by important authors in this field is ignored (e.g. Noam Shoval, Dimitrios Buhalis, Ulrike Gretzel, etc.).

Overall, although the study is interesting, it would appear to qualify more as a case study than as a research article. It's lack of grounding in the Tourism literature is a major weakness and, as such, its findings, recommendations and conclusions are rather lacking in rigour.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

thank you very much for revising your manuscript. All my remarks have been adressed well.

The quality of the paper has improved. I have no further remarks.

Reviewer 2 Report

This version include the suggestions proposed and the author reply adecuatedly at reviewer's observations

Reviewer 3 Report

The connection of this manuscript to current research in tourism and, more specifically, smart tourism destinations, remains very weak. The section added for this purpose relies on the work of two authors and is not representative of knowledge in this field across tourism

I am afraid that, on this basis, and in view of the overall quality of this revised and re-submitted manuscript, my recommendation remains that it is not suitable for publication in Smart Cities.