TITLE:
Food Tourism Planning Support System within Urban Sightseeing Areas in Japan
AUTHORS:
Makoto Hirano, Kayoko Yamamoto
KEYWORDS:
Food Tourism Planning System, Web-Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Sightseeing Plan Creation System, Eatery Search System, Sightseeing Route Creation System
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geographic Information System,
Vol.14 No.5,
October
8,
2022
ABSTRACT: The present study aimed to design, develop, operate and evaluate a tourism planning support system that can be used to decide on places to eat lunch and dinner, sightseeing spots to visit along the way, and routes for visiting these destinations. This system was developed by integrating a web geographic information system (Web-GIS) and a sightseeing plan creation system (an eatery search system and a sightseeing route creation system). Additionally, the system was operated for one month in Central Yokohama City of Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan, and the total number of users was 79. Based on the results of the web questionnaire survey, user evaluations were particularly high for the function of sightseeing spot selection and the function of display of sightseeing plan information, and also for the entire system. From the results of the access analysis of users’ log data, the total number of sessions in the system was 263, 67% used mobile devices, and smartphones were used most frequently. Therefore, it is evident that the system was used by different types of devices just as it was designed for, and that the system was used according to the purpose of the present study, which is to support the food tourism planning of users.