Search Results (10)

With the increasing public awareness and strength of industrial heritage protection, industrial heritage plays an increasingly important role in tourism after transformation and upgrading. The influence of built environment factors and visitors’ participation on satisfaction has been fully confirmed, but the primary and secondary relationships between the two variables remain unclear. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between the built environment, tourist participation, and tourism satisfaction, and compare the actual loads of different routes to find the dominant variable. The data of this study came from three industrial heritage renovation projects in Shanghai with remarkable transformation results. Field investigations and questionnaire surveys were conducted on them, and a total of 362 valid samples were received. Descriptive statistical analysis and structural equation models were used to analyze the data. Two paths of “built environment–tourism satisfaction” and “tourist participation–tourism satisfaction” are compared and demonstrated. The path coefficient of the former is 0.63, while that of the latter is 0.77, and the influence of the latter is more significant than that of the former. The study creatively found the audience orientation of both sexes for different types of experience activities, confirmed the mediating effect of subjective perception, and provided the following suggestions for managers of built industrial cultural heritage. Interactive experiences and guided tours deepen visitors’ understanding of the historical and cultural value of industrial heritage. Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies can be introduced to provide an immersive visit experience and attract a wider audience to participate, effectively enhancing the attractiveness of and satisfaction with industrial heritage tourism. Full article

This study aims to analyze bike-sharing information and related urban factors to promote bike-sharing utilization in Houston, Texas. The research was initiated with a descriptive analysis, where the hourly and daily variations in bike demand are investigated, thereby revealing the time-related patterns of bike tours. The models included data on socio-demographics, public transportation availability, land use patterns, tree canopy coverage, bike routes, and job density within 0.25-mile and 0.5-mile buffer zones around each bike-sharing station. Stepwise regression was utilized to examine the effects of urban factors on bike-sharing ridership, and the explanatory power of the model was enhanced by selecting meaningful variables. The analysis found that tree canopy coverage was a significant factor in influencing bike-sharing ridership. Expansion of tree coverage can help make biking a sustainable mode of transportation. These findings have the potential to guide the development of practical policies that aim to promote sustainable urban mobility through bike-sharing programs. Full article

Township tourism has become more varied, offering a wider range of products, experiences and services. In this paper, we examine residents and stakeholders’ opinions on township tourism in Langa, Cape Town, South Africa; an area characterised by crime, unemployment, housing backlogs and poverty. Using a qualitative approach, this paper reports on empirical evidence conducted with key tourism stakeholders to understand some of their perceptions regarding township tourism development in Langa. Concerns about safety, poor infrastructure and a lack of interaction between tourists and the local community are raised by Langa residents and community leaders. Their dissatisfaction with tour guides and tour routes serves as a reminder of the need for more inclusive practices. While business owners are aware of the potential of tourism in promoting cross-cultural dialogue, deepening understanding and creating priceless experiences, they are constrained by perceptions of crime, a lack of tourist exposure to local establishments and the exclusion from decision-making processes. Despite these difficulties that township tourism faces, it is crucial to promote ethical tourism practices that put emphasis on genuine encounters and local community empowerment. Full article

Nowadays, people like to travel to alleviate the stress and depression they experience in their busy lives, and if they can do so at a low cost, it will be even more beneficial to them. A traveler can choose to book a travel ticket themselves or to contact a travel agency, who will book a ticket for them. A lack of vehicle management can cause travel agencies to lose profit. In this article, we have provided proficient solutions for vehicle optimization to minimize travel costs. Additionally, however, arranging an appropriate tour guide is sometimes expensive for travelers. Moreover, travelers often do not know about suitable travel packages and occasionally do not know where they may want to visit. In this paper, we have discussed how we used effective methods to reduce vehicle costs for tour purposes. Furthermore, an optimal bus seat occupancy solution has been developed, incorporating the package system and including a tour guide. Our system offers a remedy by providing access to cost-effective packages. We have also added a blog portal to our web-based software for an overview all tourist places and their information. As a result, we have found optimized routes and provide low-cost, high-value tours. We have also reduced carbon footprint emissions. Our proposed optimal vehicle usage system has been developed using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the Tailwind Framework, React, and Node.js. Full article

This concept paper presents our viewpoint regarding the exploitation of cutting-edge technologies for the delivery of smart tourism cultural tours. Specifically, the paper reports preliminary work on the design of a novel smart tourism solution tailored to a multiobjective optimization system based on factors such as the preferences and constraints of the tourist/visitor, the city’s accessibility and traffic, the weather conditions, and others. By optimizing cultural tours and delivering comfortable, easy-to-follow, green, acceptable visiting experiences, the proposed solution, namely, OptiTours, aims to become a leading actor in tourism industry transformation. Moreover, specific actions, applications, and methodologies target increasing touring acceptance while advancing the overall (smart) city impression. OptiTours aims to deliver a novel system to attract visitors and guide them to enjoy a city’s possible points of interest, achieving high visitor acceptance. Advanced technologies in semantic trajectories’ management and optimization in route planning will be exploited towards the discovery of optimal, smart, green, and comfortable routes/tours. A novel multiscale and multifactor optimization system aims to deliver not only optimal personalized routes but also alternative routes, ranked based on visitors’ preferences and constraints. In this concept paper, we contribute a detailed description of the OptiTours approach for ICT-based smart tourism, and a high-level architectural design of the solution that is planned to be implemented in the near future. Full article

Multi-robot task allocation (MRTA) and route planning are crucial for a large-scale multi-robot system. In this paper, the problem is formulated to minimize the total energy consumption and overall task completion time simultaneously, with some constraints taken into consideration. To represent a solution, a novel one-chromosome representation technique is proposed, which eases the consequent genetic operations and the construction of the cost matrix. Lin–Kernighan–Helsgaun (LKH), a highly efficient sub-tour planner, is employed to generate prophet generation beforehand as well as guide the evolutionary direction during the proceeding of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, aiming to promote convergence of the Pareto front. Numerical experiments on the benchmark show the LKH guidance mechanism is effective for two famous multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, namely multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition (MOEA/D) and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA), of which LKH-guided NSGA exhibits the best performance on three predefined indicators, namely C-metric, HV, and Spacing, respectively. The generalization experiment on a multiple depots MRTA problem with constraints further demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach for practical decision making. Full article

Archaeological heritage sites constitute the most recent addition to the tourism supply of Madrid, one of the most visited regions of Spain. In 2003, the Plan de Yacimientos Visitables (Plan of Archaeological Visitable Sites) was implemented, museumising 21 sites. However, the peripheral nature of these sites and the lack of personnel prevent strict control being carried out of who visits them, the practices of these visitors and how they rate the sites. This study proposes a systematic procedure to analyse the data gathered from Twitter and Flickr, in order to determine the most shared archaeological spaces in the years immediately preceding the pandemic, and to assess the perception that the visitors had of them. The information provided is useful for learning about the real weight that these sites have in leisure experiences (school trips, guided tours, recreation, etc.). Now that travel has been restricted due to the pandemic, we should ask whether Spain’s minor heritage is able to structure new proximity tourism routes. This is based on the hypothesis that, until now, these types of heritage have had a very limited role in recreational practices, but offer potential as “outdoor museums” in the present climate. Full article

Smart tourism is the new frontier field of the tourism research. To solve current problems of smart tourism and tourism geographic information system (GIS), individualized tour guide route plan algorithm based on tourist sight spatial interest field is set up in the study. Feature interest tourist sight extracting matrix is formed and basic modeling data is obtained from mass tourism data. Tourism groups are determined by age index. Different age group tourists have various interests; thus interest field mapping model is set up based on individual needs and interests. Random selecting algorithm for selecting interest tourist sights by smart machine is designed. The algorithm covers all tourist sights and relative data information to ensure each tourist sight could be selected equally. In the study, selected tourist sights are set as important nodes while iteration intervals and sub-iteration intervals are defined. According to the principle of proximity and completely random, motive iteration clusters and sub-clusters are formed by all tourist sight parent nodes. Tourist sight data information and geospatial information are set as quantitative indexes to calculate motive iteration values and motive iteration decision trees of each cluster are formed, and then all motive iteration values are stored in descending order in a vector. For each cluster, there is an optimal motive iteration tree and a local optimal solution. For all clusters, there is a global optimal solution. Simulation experiments are performed and results data as well as motive iteration trees are analyzed and evaluated. The evaluation results indicate that the algorithm is effective for mass tourism data mining. The final optimal tour routes planned by the smart machine are closely related to tourists’ needs, interests, and habits, which are fully integrated with geospatial services. The algorithm is an effective demonstration of the application on mass tourism data mining. Full article

We investigated age differences in memory for spatial routes that were either actively or passively encoded. A series of virtual environments were created and presented to 20 younger (Mean age = 19.71) and 20 older (Mean age = 74.55) adults, through a cardboard viewer. During encoding, participants explored routes presented within city, park, and mall virtual environments, and were later asked to re-trace their travelled routes. Critically, participants encoded half the virtual environments by passively viewing a guided tour along a pre-selected route, and half through active exploration with volitional control of their movements by using a button press on the viewer. During retrieval, participants were placed in the same starting location and asked to retrace the previously traveled route. We calculated the percentage overlap in the paths travelled at encoding and retrieval, as an indicator of spatial memory accuracy, and examined various measures indexing individual differences in their cognitive approach and visuo-spatial processing abilities. Results showed that active navigation, compared to passive viewing during encoding, resulted in a higher accuracy in spatial memory, with the magnitude of this memory enhancement being significantly larger in older than in younger adults. Regression analyses showed that age and score on the Hooper Visual Organizational test predicted spatial memory accuracy, following the passive and active encoding of routes. The model predicting accuracy following active encoding additionally included the distance of stops from an intersection as a significant predictor, illuminating a cognitive approach that specifically contributes to memory benefits in following active navigation. Results suggest that age-related deficits in spatial memory can be reduced by active encoding. Full article

Notably valuable efforts have focused on helping people with special needs. In this work, we build upon the experience from the BlindHelper smartphone outdoor pedestrian navigation app and present Blind MuseumTourer, a system for indoor interactive autonomous navigation for blind and visually impaired persons and groups (e.g., pupils), which has primarily addressed blind or visually impaired (BVI) accessibility and self-guided tours in museums. A pilot prototype has been developed and is currently under evaluation at the Tactual Museum with the collaboration of the Lighthouse for the Blind of Greece. This paper describes the functionality of the application and evaluates candidate indoor location determination technologies, such as wireless local area network (WLAN) and surface-mounted assistive tactile route indications combined with Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons and inertial dead-reckoning functionality, to come up with a reliable and highly accurate indoor positioning system adopting the latter solution. The developed concepts, including map matching, a key concept for indoor navigation, apply in a similar way to other indoor guidance use cases involving complex indoor places, such as in hospitals, shopping malls, airports, train stations, public and municipality buildings, office buildings, university buildings, hotel resorts, passenger ships, etc. The presented Android application is effectively a Blind IndoorGuide system for accurate and reliable blind indoor navigation. Full article