Semantic maps and meta-data enhancing e-accessibility in tourism information systems

Providing comprehensive accessibility is the major challenge for tourism service providers to address people with disabilities (and older people) as growing consumer groups. Information about accessibility of tourism objects (accommodation, sights, streets, parks, etc) is equally important as barrier-free tourism information systems, providing access through different mediums, to support the booking and decision making process. Consequently, this paper introduces the extension of tourism information systems in a twofold way. First, each tourism object is provided with information about its accessibility realized by additional meta-data information. Second, based on both medium profiles and user profiles content presentation and user interface navigation are dynamically adapted to the user's individual needs in order to support appropriate search as well as presentation features. Additionally, it presents the concept of multi-layer semantic maps to illustrate relevant factors inform of meta-data such as preferred medium, device and user characteristics.