A knowledge‐based system in the travel business

Abstract

In the tourism sector it is often impossible for an travel agent to answer all the specific questions about destinations in a certain area. The tourist expects an expert in front of him, but a travel agent can't know everything about all the holiday resorts. Also taking into account his lack of time due to the enormous number of tourists, the travel agent will overwhelm the client with detailed brochures. Unfortunately, this service doesn't fulfill the requirements of quality management. The travel agent needs a tool to give better advice to the tourist. At the same time this can result in a strategic differentiation from competitors. Together with the students of the special licentiate in Tourism at the Limburg University Centre, Faculty of Applied Economics, we have designed such an advice system. It should lead to an improvement in the quality of advice given to the tourist who is looking for the appropriate holiday destination. We used the technology of an expert system. The experiment was limited to the 13 seaside resorts on the Belgian Coast.

Citation

Vanhoof, K. and Molderez, I. (1995), "A knowledge‐based system in the travel business", The Tourist Review, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 38-44. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb058182