Visit Planner: A Personalized Mobile Trip Design Application based on a Hybrid Recommendation Model

Harris Papadakis¹ , Costas Panagiotakis² , Paraskevi Fragopoulou³ , Georgios Chalkiadakis⁴ , Errikos Streviniotis⁵ , Ioannis-Panagiotis Ziogas⁶ , Michail Koutsmanis⁷ and Panagiotis Bariamis⁸

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Hellenic Mediterranean University, Estavromenos, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
adanar@hmu.gr
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Hellenic Mediterranean University, Estavromenos, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
cpanag@hmu.gr
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Hellenic Mediterranean University, Estavromenos, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
fragopou@ics.forth.gr
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Technical University of Crete, Kounoupidiana, Chania, Crete, Greece
gchalkiadakis@tuc.gr
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Technical University of Crete, Kounoupidiana, Chania, Crete, Greece
estreviniotis@tuc.gr
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Technical University of Crete, Kounoupidiana, Chania, Crete, Greece
iziogas@tuc.gr
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Technical University of Crete, Kounoupidiana, Chania, Crete, Greece
mkoutsmanis@tuc.gr
Netmechanics LLC,
Solonos 23, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
panos@netmechanics.gr

Abstract

The paper presents Visit Planner (ViP), a mobile application prototype that provides a solution to the challenging tourist trip design problem. ViP follows a holistic approach offering personalized recommendations for Points of Interest (POIs) based on preferences either explicitly collected by the application, or inferred by the users’ ongoing interaction with the system. ViP proposes to the final user, a trajectory of POIs calculated using an Expectation Maximization method that maximizes user satisfaction taking into consideration a variety of time and spatial constraints for both users and POIs. Additionally, POIs are divided into categories, so that a certain number of POIs from each category to be included in the final itinerary. The application is implemented as a user-interactive system that allows the flexibility for easy content adaptation and facilitates management of content and services by the user. The prototype has been implemented for Android-based smartphones, on an open application environment, using standard communication protocols and open database technology. Currently, it is applied to the city of Agios Nikolaos in Crete, and is available for download from Google play.

Key words

Mobile application, Recommendation system, Personalized tour itinerary, Expectation maximization Content-based, Collaborative-filtering

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS230610014P

Publication information

Volume 21, Issue 3 (June 2024)
Year of Publication: 2024
ISSN: 2406-1018 (Online)
Publisher: ComSIS Consortium

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How to cite

Papadakis, H., Panagiotakis, C., Fragopoulou, P., Chalkiadakis, G., Streviniotis, E., Ziogas, I., Koutsmanis, M., Bariamis, P.: Visit Planner: A Personalized Mobile Trip Design Application based on a Hybrid Recommendation Model. Computer Science and Information Systems, Vol. 21, No. 3, 923-946. (2024), https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS230610014P