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Creating Customisable Tourists Guides for Scottish
Settlements |
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Jennifer Richards |
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Research Context The
increasing numbers of tourists to Scotland are in need of more specific
guides for their local destination. The current tourist guides available are
either too general or too specific so are unsuitable for travellers who do
not want to see only the major tourist attractions. This was confirmed by an
online survey of Gazetteer for Scotland users, which also revealed users
would benefit from a route taking in features of their personal interest. This
study builds upon the work done by Farrar (2011) to create customised local
guides for Scottish settlements. The Gazetteer for Scotland provides the
database for guide information whilst Ordnance Survey Open Data supplies maps
for feature location. Research Aim Using
previous work as a base upon which to improve, the aim of this project is: ‘Can the
Gazetteer for Scotland be used as a base for creating a personalized route
map and guide for tourists in Scotland?’ Methodology The guide
is created using a Perl program, with calls to the EDINA web mapping service
and the Gazetteer for Scotland database. The guide creation program was made
more efficient to both run and maintain, with additional functionality
incorporated effectively. Parameters given to the program select the location
of interest, whether to include sections of the guide with local history,
industry, geography, famous people, historical events and surrounding towns.
Including an additional argument filters the type of features included to
only those of interest to the user. The result is a condensed guide with only
information relevant to the specific user. A user
interface is hosted on the Gazetteer for Scotland website where the visitor
is able to select a destination and chapters to be included in their guide.
The completed guide is offered as a PDF via a web link for users to download
to a mobile device for use on location. Results The user
interface to create customised local guides is found at: http://www.scottish-places.info/customisedguidebook.html Currently,
online implementation is limited to the most popular destinations with 4
sections selectable for inclusion in the guide. With additional feature
filtering, only those of interest to the user are included within the tourist
guide. Map of
Edinburgh showing only the historic buildings
Conclusion The
developed solution allows the user to select their features and information
of interest, in combination with their destination, to return a personal
interest guide. The webpage interface allows the user to select location and
interests. This interface can link to the Perl program used to generate the
guides but currently creates a link to the pre-generated guide most suitable
for the user. The
Gazetteer for Scotland has previously been used to successfully generate
multi-purpose local guides which were expanded upon to allow user
interactivity. Key References Farrar,
A. 2011. Automated Encyclopaedic Tourist Guide Generation for the Settlements
of Scotland: A Static Document Approach. Unpublished MSc Thesis, University
of Edinburgh. Gittings, BM. 2014. The Gazetteer for
Scotland. Accessed at http://www.scottish-places.info/ |
