Trip Backer: A Fuzzy Logic Based Approach to E-tourist Attractiveness Assessment

Abstract

An approach for calculating the e-tourist attractiveness of a country as a tourist destination is proposed using a fuzzy inference system. The approach uses publicly available data about the country collected from travel and tourist websites through an automated system for website scraping and data parsing. The inputs are then fuzzified and aggregated into complex indicators of transport, tourism, and entertainment infrastructure using the union of fuzzy sets. Mamdani fuzzy inference is then carried out using a rule base developed by experts in the travel and tourism domain. The rule base is also simplified and reduced to check for adequacy, and the levels of e-tourist attractiveness for a number of countries are determined as quantitative indicators of competitiveness in the global E-tourism and travel market.