CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

This study investigates location-based tourist applications for hand-held devices that are augmented with the Global Positioning System (GPS), which provides regularly updated information about the user's current location (Singh & Singh, 2015). An application of this kind lets the user take part in a travel expo, that is, a self-guided tour of a specific area, in which detailed information about particular features is displayed according to the user's current position. This includes information about where the user is, which attractions are nearby, and details about specific buildings.

The Tourist Guide project investigates context-sensitive mobile computing for the use of visitors in the country. Rich multimedia support is built into the system to provide extra features that enhance the tour expo (Singh & Singh, 2015). This report describes the processes involved in designing the Tourist Guide application and concentrates in particular on the context-sensitive features of the system and on the reliability of its navigation. Earlier hand-held tourist applications were built on devices such as the Compaq Aero, a colour palm-size PC that had to be connected to a separate Garmin GPS navigation unit to obtain the location information needed to run the application, because no integrated solution existed for that device at the time. Current hand-held devices combine computing and GPS in a single unit, and this project accordingly targets the Android operating system.

1.1 Background of Study

A number of research efforts have examined GPS-based hand-held tourist applications, and two of the best-known early systems are summarised here. To achieve the aims of the project, the study draws on two areas that other researchers are currently investigating: context-sensitive computing and mobile computing.

The GUIDE project of the Distributed Multimedia Research Group at Lancaster University investigated electronic tourist guides in a practical, real-world environment. The group built and tested several versions of an electronic tourist guide for the city of Lancaster over a number of years, and its approach used wireless communication to a pen-based tablet computer. Compared with the solution proposed here, GUIDE used a much larger device (213 mm x 153 mm x 15 mm in size and 850 grams in weight). This allowed an SVGA display that supported a traditional web-browser style interface and a rich information service for the user, while the wireless link gave access to an almost unlimited store of tourism information and services.

Cyberguide is another hand-held electronic tourist guide that supplies the user with context-sensitive information (Atkeson et al., 1996). It was first developed for indoor tours at the Georgia Institute of Technology's GVU Center and was later extended to operate outdoors using GPS. The focus of the system was the investigation of context-sensitive computing, so only limited support was implemented for creating tours.

Context-sensitive, or context-aware, computing refers to a program feature that changes according to the environmental conditions of the user while the application is running (Perera et al., 2014). Context may include the user's location, the people currently interacting with the user, the time of day and the user's current task. A simple example is context-sensitive help, which supplies documentation for the particular feature the user is in the process of using. In tourism, context awareness allows mobile tourist guides to give users personalised access to information at any time and from any place (Silva et al., 2018).

The presentation of information and services can be adapted to suit the user's changing tasks. With the spread of mobile phones and hand-held computers, mobile computing has become the norm for personal information spaces (Marques, 2022). Location-based tourist guides, for example, match the user's current position against a stored geographic information database and push the corresponding multimedia content to the device, and Android-based versions can run in standalone mode without a web connection (Singh & Singh, 2015). Other Android tourist guides use the user's context, obtained through device sensors and public application programming interfaces (APIs), to suggest places to visit (Silva et al., 2018), or store their data on the device so that they can be used offline and avoid roaming charges (Weilharter, 2015). Hand-held and pen-based devices have also been investigated outside tourism, for example as a means of supporting collaboration among mobile workers and of improving emergency care.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Because of the complexity of the tourism board in the state, efforts have been made to find the major cause of its ineffectiveness.

The major problem is slow response time in handling enquiries and making bookings. Customers and travel agents alike complain of difficulty in getting through, since the telephone lines are continuously engaged. This often causes customers to book their tours through other tourism operators, resulting in a loss of profit. Because of the inefficiency of the current system, aircraft seats and hotel accommodation also tend to be either overbooked or not booked at all. A system is required to overcome these problems, and before a system designed to eliminate such weaknesses can be attempted, the existing system must be analysed using a structured methodology.

1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The main aim of this project was to develop a tourism guide for the Android operating system. The design objectives of the study were as follows:

(i) To display attraction information, in the form of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pages, that is relevant to the user's position.

(ii) To display the user's position graphically on the tour map, based on the position obtained from GPS.

(iii) To provide functionality for other tours to be created, uploaded onto the system and used.

1.4 Significance of the Study

In implementing the objectives of this study, the advantages of a computer-based tourism guide system over the existing system, that is, the manual way of requesting and monitoring bookings, will be demonstrated. Users will be able to track and access resources digitally without carrying books, journals, magazines and similar materials, which wear out quickly as paper documents. In addition, the system will give people the opportunity to know the current status and position of tourist centres. This study will also serve as a handy reference for other researchers who embark on similar studies in the future, especially on aspects that the present study does not cover.

1.5 Scope of the Study

The operations carried out in tourism boards are numerous. This project is therefore restricted to those operations that concern tourism. Specifically, the researcher is interested in designing a computer system that will facilitate the provision of information and the rendering of services in the tourism board.

1.6 Organization of the Research

The project is organized as follows:

Chapter one introduces the project and discusses its background. It also presents the statement of the problem, the objectives, the significance and the scope of the project.

Chapter two gives a brief review of literature on tourism guides.

Chapter three discusses system analysis and design. It deals with the detailed investigation and analysis of the existing system and with problem identification.

Chapter four covers system implementation, testing and integration.

Chapter five presents the summary of findings, the constraints of the project, the conclusion and the recommendations. References, Appendix A and Appendix B follow chapter five.

1.7 Definition of Terms

Tourism: A social, cultural and economic phenomenon that involves the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business or professional purposes (UN Tourism, n.d.). It also covers the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. Tourism may be international or within the traveller's own country.

Tourist guide: A person who guides visitors in the language of their choice and interprets the cultural and natural heritage of an area. Such a person normally holds an area-specific qualification, usually issued or recognised by the appropriate authority.

System: A collection of elements or components organised for a common purpose.

Module: A separate unit of software.

References

Atkeson, C. G., Hong, J. I., Long, S., Kooper, R., & Pinkerton, M. D. (1996). Cyberguide: A mobile context-aware tour guide [Technical report]. Georgia Institute of Technology. https://repository.gatech.edu/entities/publication/54d58f81-124b-4953-ab1d-7228ce0761ff

Marques, I. R. R. de L. (2022). Development of a virtual tour guide mobile application [Master's thesis, Universidade do Porto]. Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto. https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/bitstream/10216/140953/2/554503.pdf

Perera, C., Zaslavsky, A., Christen, P., & Georgakopoulos, D. (2014). Context aware computing for the Internet of Things: A survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 16(1), 414–454. https://doi.org/10.1109/SURV.2013.042313.00197

Silva, C. A., Toasa, R., Guevara, J., Martinez, H. D., & Vargas, J. (2018). Mobile application to encourage local tourism with context-aware computing. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73450-7_75

Singh, S. P., & Singh, P. (2015). Design and implementation of a location-based multimedia mobile tourist guide system. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology, 7(1).

UN Tourism. (n.d.). Glossary of tourism terms. https://www.untourism.int/glossary-tourism-terms

Weilharter, M. (2015). Design and implementation of an automatic tourist guide [Master's thesis, TU Wien]. reposiTUm. https://repositum.tuwien.at/bitstream/20.500.12708/2072/2/Weilharter%20Manuela%20-%202015%20-%20Design%20and%20implementation%20of%20an%20automatic%20tourist...pdf