Browsing by Author "Swanepoel, Nita"

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    Development of an architecture and web-based demonstrator for tourist itinerary planning
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-11) Swanepoel, Nita; Bekker, J. F.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Industrial Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The international Travel and Tourism sector has shown significant growth in recent years and is an exceptionally lucrative industry. It is continuously expanding, improving business processes and incorporating technological advancements that create an abundance of travel opportunities. An area of the industry that has gained more attraction recently is trip planning, as it is arguably one of the most important aspects of a tourist’s journey regardless of their background or income level. With the wide variety of travel websites, online booking platforms and tourist recommendations available on the internet and social media, the task of creating an itinerary can be daunting. Every prospective tourist has different needs and preferences and, therefore, the itinerary planning process requires careful deliberation and comparison of options in order to make suitable and realistic choices. The researcher surmised that there is a need for a personalised itinerary planner which allows the user to specify the budget. To address this need, a research study was conducted in which engineering technologies, information systems, computer programming and web development were combined to develop a new and original tourist itinerary planning (TIP) demonstrator. A literature study revealed that two essential aspects of trip planning, namely personalisation and budgeting have, to some extent, been neglected in previous works. Therefore, the TIP demonstrator presented in this study is focused on providing tourists with an itinerary that satisfactorily fulfils their travel preferences and helps them stay within their desired budget. The TIP demonstrator also offers a unique interactive process of trip planning where the itinerary is constructed with continuous input from the user. This is realised using a TIP architecture, algorithm, database and browser user interface that collectively facilitate the itinerary planning process. After development and implementation, the TIP demonstrator has been tested on different scenarios imitating real-life travel planning behaviours and preferences. The evaluation of the TIP demonstrator showed that it is viable to develop a fully deployable system of this nature and that there exists a business case for it. This study showed, once again, that industrial engineering principles can be applied and integrated systems developed in the services sector.