Travelers expect access to tourism information at anytime, anywhere, with any media. Mobile tourism guides, accessible via the Web, provide an omnipresent approach to this. Thereby it is expensive and not trivial to (re)model, translate and transform data over and over. This inhibits many players, including governments, in developing such applications. We report on our experience in running a project on mobile tourism in Flanders, Belgium where we develop a methodology and reusable formalization for the data disclosure. We apply open data standards to achieve a reusable and interoperable datahub for mobile tourism. We organized working groups resulting in a re-usable formal specification and serialization of the domain model that is immediately usable for building mobile tourism applications. This increased the awareness and lead to semantic convergence which is forming a regional foundation to develop sustainable mobile guides for tourism.

1. Providing Interchangeable Open Data to Accelerate
Development of Sustainable Regional Mobile Tourist Guides
Laurens De Vocht (@laurens_d_v)
W. Van den Bosch, R. Buyle, B. Koninckx, R. Verborgh,
E. Mannens, and R. Van de Walle

2. Introduction
Community: Regional Support
Open Tourism: Vocabulary and Specification
Making it happen: Dissemination and Governance
Next Steps and Lessons Learned
Agenda

3. Introduction
Community: Regional Support
Open Tourism: Vocabulary and Specification
Making it happen: Dissemination and Governance
Next Steps and Lessons Learned

4. WHAT
…
we could use the same services in different places
around the world without the need for searching
new service providers or building new apps...

5. WHAT
Information often can't be reused without analizing
the data or building expensive custom applications.

6. WHAT
COULD
BE?
Linking Open Data to connect these solitary pieces of
information to other data sources on the web.

7. WHAT
SHOULD
WE DO?
more Open Data and a common language for machine
readable (interchangeable) tourism information.

8. Tourism organizations and application
developers in the region of Flanders,
Belgium set-up a shared vision on a
data model, supported by the relevant
stakeholders in the sector.
Such a model is key for developing
sustainable mobile tourist guides. ?
?

9. Current State
 Approach for tourism data to be made available anywhere, anytime via mobile devices (apps).
 Expensive: complex to model, transform tourism data over and over (e.g. for different regions)
inhibits many players, including governments, in developing such applications.
Mobile tourist guides in Flanders?

10. Work in progress
 We developed a data model and specification for the data disclosure, to lower (cost-) barriers for reuse.
 Applying open standards contributed to the achievement of a reusable and interoperable datahub for
such mobile tourism applications and services.
 Working groups delivered a domain model and specification for tourism data:
Immediately (re-)usable for building mobile tourism applications.
Increased awareness and platform for discussion
What else is out there? How do others approach similar data?
Leads to semantic convergence which is forming a regional foundation for future developments
Mobile tourist guides in Flanders?

11. Shared vision?
“Open Tourism” Model and
Specification
Ontologies are expected to enable
computers to process information
“much more effectively in ways that
are useful and meaningful to the
human user” (Berners-Lee, Hendler, and
Lassila 2001).

12. Introduction
Community Driven: The Regional User Group
Open Tourism: Vocabulary and Specification
Making it happen: Dissemination and Governance
Next Steps and Lessons Learned

13. User Group 40+ actors: SME’s, NPO’s involved in
culture and tourism activities, representatives from
the provinces and of the major cities in Flanders

14. How the User Group handles their data

15. User priorities as:
data provider and
data consumer

16. Introduction
Community: Regional Support
Open Tourism: Vocabulary and Specification
Making it happen: Dissemination and Governance
Next Steps and Lessons Learned

17. Modelling the Data: Process Overview
Tourism Specification
Domains
Entities + Relations + Attributes
Steering
committee
Working
groups
per domain
formalizationvalidation

18. Defining Tourism Domains
What?
By whom?
Where?
When?
How?
For whom?
Availability
Offering
Experience
Demand

19. “After defining the
scope of each sub-
domain we organized
working groups. Each
group was responsible
to work out their sub-
domain in detail in
terms of domain
modeling”
Result: Conceptual Model and Specification
Availability
Offering
Experience
Demand

20. Open Tourism Data: Conceptual Model

21. Locations
Opening Hours
Touristic Products (Events,
Lodging, Restaurants,
Activities, Attractions…)
Pricing
Rates
Organizations
Reports and Statistics
Target Groups
Meta-information
Publication Channels
Media (Text, Video, Images…)
Open Tourism Data: Conceptual Model

22. Open Tourism Data: Conceptual Model
Statistics, Reports, Target Groups and
Organizations
Meta-information
Locations
Touristic Products
Opening Hours, Media and Channels

23. (Registered) Organization
Metadata Vocabulary for Tabular Data
Terms/Metadata
Vocabulary
Core Location Vocabulary
Maximal Reuse of Existing Vocabularies
GoodRelations Ontology
Accommodation Ontology
Creative Work Terminology
OpenigHours Specification
Note: Some crucial terms for relations and attributes were
introduced in a dedicated namespace of open tourism data:
ost - http://w3id.org/ost to ‘glue’ the vocabularies together

24. Introduction
Community: Regional Support
Open Tourism: Vocabulary and Specification
Making it happen: Dissemination and Governance
Next Steps and Lessons Learned

25. Understanding the ‘semantics’
 “the language” (vocabulary) aspect
syntax & grammar covered by techies → see it as a dictionary
 where is it described? What does it cover?
specification http://w3id.org/ost/spec
 open world assumption → open to reality
 lack of central authority → bi-directional & community managed
 understand your own data!
& understand that understanding may not be trivial

26. Use & Uptake
 possible to integrate data of any format
 shift focus: from data format to data quality
link any data to any data nevertheless
 speak, advocate, listen (semantics!)
 be ready to update & upgrade tools

27. CSV
JSON
XML
XLS
...
JSON(LD)
(RDF)XML
HTML(+RDFa)
MAP
...
Publish source data any format on the Web
The DataTank
http://thedatatank.com

28. Data published with the Open Tourism specification
The West Flanders tourism
organization was
the first to bring their data in line
with the specification
http://datahub.westtoer.be

29. The Open Tourism Community: Portal
 Mailing list
 Tools and resources
 The Open Toursm Data
Vocabulary and Specification
 News on the upcoming events
http://tourism.openknowledge.be

30. Introduction
Community: Regional Support
Open Tourism: Vocabulary and Specification
Making it happen: Dissemination and Governance
Next Steps and Lessons Learned

31. Next steps…
 Pilot cases (e.g. interactive multimedia walking
routes, map coastal and rural cycling networks)
to prove the added value of the reduced effort in
building mobile tourism guides and ensure that
there is a significant impact on the tourism policy
in the region of Flanders, Belgium.
 Bring The Open Tourism specification to an
international level.
 Build a bridge to the interoperability programme
of the Flemish Government, “Open Standards for
Linked Governments”.

32.  semantic collaboration more and more a
cornerstone in next generation mobile
tourism applications.
 semantic standards are a katalysator for
better interoperable tourism services and
Open Tourism Data.
 The Open Tourism model and
specifcation at http://w3id.org/ost/spec
Lessons Learned

33. Providing Interchangeable Open Data to Accelerate
Development of Sustainable Regional Mobile Tourist Guides
Laurens De Vocht
laurens.devocht@ugent.be
@laurens_d_v
http://tourism.openknowledge.be