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EUREKA PROJECT
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EUREKA PROJECT > 6244 PROPS-TOUR
SPAIN
Platform for open and integrated promotion of tourism services
To design, build and prototype an ICT platform for open and integrated promotion of different tourism services available in a certain geographic area, ensuring an efficient and unbiased provision of services information.
Status > ANNOUNCED - 21-Jun-2011 Technological Area Market Area Start Date > 01-Dec-2010 Duration > 17 Months Participating countries > SPAIN, TURKEY | Main contactEgeo IT S.L. Mr. Joaquin M. Fernandez Gonzalez > General Manager Organisation type > SME |
Project Description
There is a widening consensus about sustainable growth of European tourism industry: it should be achieved by the appearing and spreading of innovative business models based on new products and services that require significant technological developments, rather than in quantitative growth of tourist flows or the proliferation of new destinations. Furthermore tourism industry is an intensive information consumer by its own nature, and consequently a eager consumer of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) solutions. Considering in particular e-mobility solutions, new business models are based in "Information/ Recommendation Systems”, among the most promoted (even hyped) specific ICT solutions for tourist mobility. These systems offer orientation and suggestions to tourists already in their destination, taking into account tourists profiles, their record as travellers and other factors of the surrounding context. Unfortunately these "Information/Recommendation Systems" only too often lack enough updated online info about services offered in a given area. The PROPS-Tour platform wants to become an essential catalyst that allow an uneven & heterogenic tourist services offering to reach its natural targets: tourists already in their destination. Analysis, design and prototype of this PROPS-Tour platform should also assure promotion of tourism services offering in a certain area can be accessible for a variety of information/recommendation systems with the support of open standards and an interoperable environment. Therefore, the platform has the following two main characteristics: • It is considered open according to the open interoperability standards that will be used for its construction. Withal, it will implement promotion and services supply that are meant to be open and lack any kind of slant or filter (apart from ethical criteria concerning adult leisure options). • It is integrated due to its capacity to agglutinate an extremely different and heterogenic offering that is to be turned into information susceptible of being treated by a wide range of systems and applications. Likewise, the platform integrates the aforementioned disparate services supply taking into account the geographical proximity. The main technological and functional innovations provided by the PROPS-Tour project can be summed up as: • Construction of a platform capable of thoroughly storing all the tourist services offered by the different providers in a certain destination regardless their size, presence or technological capacity. • Recording the complete descriptions about services as well as the required semantic annotation for subsequent processing. • Creation of a social interface so that services providers are able to refresh and update those contents considered as highly valuable for its inmediacy. • Provision of the required interfaces to allow the communication between the repository and other recommendation systems by means of open standards. • Development of the necessary mechanisms so that the platform is able to promote equally all the recorded services generating no biases of any kind. • Elaboration of metrics focused on the platform impact and relevance in the small tourism companies’ ecosystem, identifying their influence in productivity and sustainability.
Technological Development Envisaged
The PROPS-Tour platform is conceived as an instrument involving several technologies such as semantic web, web services, social web and tourist services harmonization standards as the one developed by the Open Travel Alliance (OTA). From the point of view of semantic web, an ontology will be developed (starting from the result of previous initiatives among which Harmonise project should be pointed out) as the basis for the annotation of the available tourist services and to enable their semantic manipulation. With regard to web services, although the platform will accessible via a GUI web interface, it will provide access to its services by means of web services. The web service is conceived as a set of protocols and standards for data interchange between web applications. Interoperability is achieved by means of open standards. The adoption of this interconnection paradigm enables the extensibility of the PROPS-Tour platform towards new applications and tourist management systems. Considering the use of Web 2.0 and social networks, it is intended that PROPS-Tour can be updated using different elements such as microblogging. This service will allow users to send and publish short messages (about 140 chars.) to announce last-minute offers, instant services and general status notifications. Finally, different initiatives for tourist services harmonization will be analyzed. The first step to build a stable environment for service provision is to develop a common language to enable the interoperability of the involved agents. Open Travel Alliance (OTA) provides a XML Schema that covers most of the players in the tourist industry: airlines, hotels, car rentals, tour operators, ... OTA specifications are based on ebXML, a subset of standards for the description of processes involved in e-commerce. The solutions adopted by PROPS-Tour will be based on the aforementioned specifications.
Main contactEgeo IT S.L. Mr. Joaquin M. Fernandez Gonzalez > General Manager Organisation type > SME |
Contribution to project
The contribution of EgeoIT in the project consists on the development of the following work packages that have been identified: • WP 1 "UR Phase": In-depth analisys of the state-of-the-art relevant to the project, requirements definition and specification and proposal of a suitable solution according to the tasks defined in the User Requirements phase of the European Space Agency PSS-05-0 standard. • WP 2 "Semantic Subsystem": The aim of this WP is to develop and adapt the required technology for the definition of a formal ontology to represent the complex reality related to the provision of tourist services to tourists already at destination and the necessary mechanisms for the semantic annotation and reasoning for the effective retrieval of information about the tourist services offer available in a certain destination. • WP 3 "Spatial Management Subsystem": The objective of this WP is to build a component that provides the required functionality in terms of the spatial management operations involved in the provision of tourist services. Geolocalization of service providers, proximity calculation and route management among other operations will be provided by this component. • WP 4 "Client Application Interface Subsystem": The purpose of the activities contained in this WP is to develop an interface, using Web Services and SOA related technologies, for the intercommunication between the PROPS-Tour platform and the client systems providing a unified point of access and integrated functionality using open and widespreaded standards. • WP 7 "TR Phase": This WP is aimed at the development of the appropriate tasks for the integration, testing and building of the fully functional prototype of the PROPS-Tour platform. • WP 8 "Dissemination & Exploitation": The objective of the dissemination activities will be the transference of knowledge and the disclosure of the achievements of the project by means of scientific publications and conferences. A web page for the project will be created to provide information about the progression of the development.
Expertise
EgeoIT is a small consulting company created in 2002 and initially focused on technological areas related to Geographic Information Systems / Location Based Systems (GIS / LBS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). During last years the company has developed projects for different clients (other consulting companies and public and private end-clients) in the aforementioned areas. These projects comprise all the phases of the cycle of life of information systems, although consulting, analysis and design activities have been the most relevant ones. Some of the most remarkable clients so far are ICM (Information and Communication Technologies Agency for the Comunidad de Madrid), Openalia and Inteligencia Sistemática 4 (IS4). Given the expertise gained by the professionals in the company in the different national and international R&D programmes, in November 2008, EgeoIT was awarded by CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology) as a certified mediator according to the Plan de Bonos Tecnológicos to increase the presence of Spanish firms in the 7th Framework Programme and to facilitate the internationalization of their R&D activities.
Main contactImplemental Systems S.L. Mr. Mabel Scharfhausen > General Manager http://www.implementalsystems.com/ Organisation type > SME |
Contribution to project
The contribution of Implemental Systems in the project consists on the development of the following work packages that have been identified: • WP 1 "UR Phase": In-depth analisys of the state-of-the-art relevant to the project, requirements definition and specification and proposal of a suitable solution according to the tasks defined in the User Requirements phase of the European Space Agency PSS-05-0 standard. • WP 3 "Spatial Management Subsystem": The objective of this WP is to build a component that provides the required functionality in terms of the spatial management operations involved in the provision of tourist services. Geolocalization of service providers, proximity calculation and route management among other operations will be provided by this component. • WP 7 "TR Phase": This WP is aimed at the development of the appropriate tasks for the integration, testing and building of the fully functional prototype of the PROPS-Tour platform.
Expertise
Implemental Systems is a IT Services Engineering company focused in the implementation of information systems as value adders to business processes. The company is mainly specialized in two specific areas such as web services and geographic information systems (GIS). Implemental Systems organizes its services offer into three areas: IT projects, ousourcing and development factory. IT project services support the whole project development cycle from design to maintenance, analisys and coding. Outsourcing services are focused in areas out of the core of the companies that, after being asumed by Implemental, mean a relevant reduction of costs for client companies. This tasks cover management and maintenance of software solutions, management of distributed systems, network outsourcing, helpdesk outsourcing, etc. Lastly, services offered by the software factory allow the customization of information systems regarding the requirements of the clients. In the case of web and GIS technologies, both areas share a common structure divided into four sub-areas: technology consulting, system construction, system maintenance and software factory providing services aimed at the industrialization of software solutions.
Main contactSayisal Teknoloji ve Elektronik Sistemler Ltd. Sti. Mr. Zafer Kurhan > General Manager http://www.sayisalteknoloji.com.tr/ Organisation type > SME |
Contribution to project
The contribution of Sayisal Teknoloji in the project consists on the development of the following work packages that have been identified: • WP 1 "UR Phase": In-depth analisys of the state-of-the-art relevant to the project, requirements definition and specification and proposal of a suitable solution according to the tasks defined in the User Requirements phase of the European Space Agency PSS-05-0 standard. • WP 2 "Semantic Subsystem": The aim of this WP is to develop and adapt the required technology for the definition of a formal ontology to represent the complex reality related to the provision of tourist services to tourists already at destination and the necessary mechanisms for the semantic annotation and reasoning for the effective retrieval of information about the tourist services offer available in a certain destination. Preference elicitation mechanisms will be developed to identify user preferences by analyzing users behaviour when interacting with their recommendation systems (user clicks, navigation time, multimedia inspected, documents requested, etc.) in order to tackle the 'coldstart problem'. Another key element for the Semantic Subsystem is the representation of the context surrounding the user. User context will be modeled from the point of view of tourist applications using OWL. Current version of OTA standard includes some of the definitions (implemented in XSD) required by this subsystem. Sayisal will contribute in the development of definitions related with the implemented tourist services. • WP 7 "TR Phase": This WP is aimed at the development of the appropriate tasks for the integration, testing and building of the fully functional prototype of the PROPS-Tour platform. • WP 8 "Dissemination & Exploitation": The objective of the dissemination activities will be the transference of knowledge and the disclosure of the achievements of the project by means of scientific publications and conferences. A web page for the project will be created to provide information about the progression of the development.
Expertise
Sayisal Teknoloji is a newly-formed software development company whose personnel has been working on both national and inter-national projects. Sayisal Teknoloji has been working in the tourism domain since July 2001 and recently started developing a new project for Technical Service and Maintenance Domain. Sayisal Teknoloji was previously involved with projects for Medical Imaging Domain. Sayisal Teknoloji has experiences in the following areas: General Software Development: • Various software development projects involving all stages of a software development life-cycle • Database design and development • Semantic web • Service oriented architectures, software as a service • Ontology languages • Content and context based e-privacy • Content centralization and management • Agent technologies • Message oriented middleware • Business process automation E-Commerce: • Back-end and front-end web sites for a tourism company in U.S. Back-end web site assisted the users to manage their services and make them available on the web for purchase. Front-end web site participated as a store front for the services. • E-commerce application framework development for the travel industry involving B2B and B2C components • Personalization techniques for e-commerce customers • Subscription based content via Web Services • Exchanging standardized messages via web services to facilitate service reservation and purchase Technologies: • Rational Unified Process • AJAX • .NET • Java • Web Services • Object Relational Mapping Sayisal Teknoloji participates both in local and international markets, including importing software to both Europe and USA and participating Framework Programme of the European Commission. Sayisal Teknoloji has worked with an U.S. company and implemented both an e-commerce web site for tourism services and an administration web site for implementing the in-office processes and for data entry in to the system. Sayisal teknoloji has participated three FP6 projects, SATINE, MEDSI,ESUPPORT and several projects that were supported by national funding programmes, such as The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and Technology Development Foundation of Turkey (TTGV) SATINE project is about Semantic-based Interoperability Infrastructure for Integrating Web Service Platforms to Peer-to-Peer Networks (http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/webpage/projects/satine/). In that project, Sayisal Teknoloji personnel participated both as a developer and as the end user. At the start of the project, Both as-is and to-be business processes of a tourism agency were developed. These business processes formed the basis for the requirement phases of the demonstrator. Sayisal Teknoloji has recently developed the backbone of the content management system which allows storing contents of several entities related with the tourism. It is implemented using cutting edge technology such as Microsoft .NET 3.5, Ajax and Web Services. This server enables users to manage the back-end information of the entities in tourism domain. The content is stored multilingual with no limitation on number of languages. Sayisal Teknoloji is currently working on this backbone to add new capabilities to the server. Sayisal Teknoloji is also implementing public web sites with related OTA messages and Web Services to query the multilingual content. Sample sites are being developed in a multilingual way to serve the multi-lingual content stored in the system.
Main contactParkyeri - Park Yeri Iletisim Internet Pazarlama Tanıtım Hiz Mr. Murat Avci > General Manager Organisation type > SME |
Contribution to project
The contribution of Parkyeri in the project consists on the development of the following work packages that have been identified: • WP 1 "UR Phase": In-depth analysis of the state-of-the-art relevant to the project, requirements definition and specification and proposal of a suitable solution according to the tasks defined in the User Requirements phase the European Space Agency PSS-05-0 standard. • WP 2 "Semantic Subsystem": The aim of this WP is to develop and adapt the required technology for the definition of a formal ontology to represent the complex reality related to the provision of tourist services to tourists already at destination and the necessary mechanisms for the semantic annotation and reasoning for the effective retrieval of information about the tourist services offer available in a certain destination. Parkyeri will focus, within this WP, in tackling the 'coldstart problem' that will appear when the information about user's context and preferences is not rich enough to generate relevant recommentations. Therefore, methods such as clustering via demographics among others may be incoporated into the semantic subsystem in order to extract preferences from groups of users having similar interests to current user being processed at a certain moment. Preference elicitation mechanisms will be also developed to identify user preferences by analyzing users behaviour when interacting with their recommendation systems (user clicks, navigation time, multimedia inspected, documents requested, etc.). • WP 5 "Service Provider Portal": This WP is aimed to design and develop the web portal that provides the whole functionality for the tourist service providers to manage and maintain all the aspects about their presence in the platform and the information related to the services they provide. • WP 6 "Social Interface Subsystem": The aim of WP 6 is to develop and adapt the appropriate technology to build an interface to the platform that provides service providers with microblogging capabilities for the instantaneous update and diffusion of relevant information about their services.
Expertise
Founded in 2001, Parkyeri offers full range of custom software development and consulting services including mobile services and applications development, Internet based applications development, PostgreSQL database, e-commerce, and e-business consulting. Parkyeri is also the fast growing IT company in Turkey and the 36Th in Europe of 2007 in Deloitte Fast 50. Tubitak, Turksat, Turkcell, Genpa, Life, Etisalat, NTV, Erdem Holding, Eagle Mobile, Evo, GMF and Dal Group are the some of customers of Parkyeri. Parkyeri has provided consulting to Tubitak (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) and Turksat (The Only International Satellite and Cable Operator in Turkey) for their project related with PostgreSQL Database Server. Parkyeri focuses on ; Internet Based Applications Services Mobile Services and Infrastructure Applications Video Solutions (Video Streaming, Internet TV, Anonymous Video Chat, Video Call Center) Server Tuning, Database Tuning, Database Migrations from Oracle, MySQL to PosgreSQL, monitoring solutions for enterprise systems. System Integration Parkyeri's services can be grouped under six main fields; Project Management and Software Development Consulting Services Infrastructure/Management Integration Operation & System Support Parkyeri has developed hundreds of applications and projects since 2001. Some of them are ; Ongoing Projects : ARF (Enhanced Service Creation Environment for GSM VAS) Developing and designing with cutting edge technologies and SOA architecture, aims to handle very high rate messaging operations and supports full functions of a mobile service creation environment and the mobile marketing platform together. Enable to place multiple services belonging to multiple parties in same platform. BSS (Location Based Social Networking Platform) Developing and designing to includes all remarkable features of 50 existing platforms into a platform. Provides high mobile and internet technologies with extraordinary user experience. KampanyaSenin (Enhanced Mobile Marketting Platform for SMEs) KampanyaSenin aims to be the first full functioned mobile marketting platform developed for small and middle size enterprises in Turkey. Sahaf (C2C E-Business Platform) TFM (Language Translation Portal) RBT (Ring Back Tone End User Portal) Tekcek (Virtual POS gateway) TiklaGonder (Mass/Bulk messaging plartform) Completed Projects : Morparti (Service Creation Environment for GSM VAS) Used in over 150 mobile services as a platform. Over 100.000.000 messages processed by Morparti since 2003. Mesajlarım (Unified Messaging Platform) Mesajlarim developed, optimized and maintaining to deliver service to over 35 millions of subscribers. Mesajlarim suppports different message types together and enables people to send 2 millions messages each other in a day. Genpatech (B2C E-Commerce Platform) E-commerce platform which belongs to the biggest cellphone distributer in Turkey. BayiiOnline (B2B E-Business Platform) Over 2100 resellers of Genpa use this platform with 2000 completed shopping transaction in a day. Kadeh (GSM VAS Gateway with Istanbul Bilgi University) Parkyeri colloborated with Bilgi University to develop GSM VAS gateway and supported Bilgi University by consulting about technology and project management. WebUrunu (Web Framework and CMS) WebUrunu is a web framework enabling fast and strong development environment for developers and easy-to-use interfaces for end-users. Over 100 web applications have been developed and ran on WebUrunu. NBA Wap Portal (Wap Portal) CalarkenDinlet (End User RBT Portal) HedefliMesaj (Permissioned Mobile Marketting Platform) HaberdarEt (Bulk messaging, data mining and profiling solutions for mobile marketting) BurasiBenim (Location based mobile game) GezEglen (Mobile Infotainment Service) MMS Yarat (MMS Portal) Consultancy : Tubitak UEKAE - RTÜK Watch Infrastucture consultancy Maintaining and migration of terabytes of data in PostgreSQL databases. Turkcell – Service Delivery Platform – Turkcell-im SDP and Turkcell-im were the projects to develop and implement the largest mobile service delivery plarform and the WAP portal respectively, in Turkey. Parkyeri was in the project as a Application Service provider, developing new services for WAP portal and consulting 10 third parties about technologies used in SDP and the WAP portal. Turksat - Cable TV Dealer infrastructure consultancy Ongoing Projects : RBT (Ring Back Tone End User Portal, Albenia) Completed Projects : Bimeka (Unified Messaging System, Ukraine) Bimeka was designed, developed and implemented to serve unified messaging system to subcribers of Ukraine's biggest operator. CepTV (Mobile TV Application, Dubai) CepTV is the first 3G application developed in Turkey. MassMS (Mass/Bulk Messaging Platform, Ukraine) Jetmesaj (Group Messaging Platform, Ukraine) ParkOTA (Mobile OTA Settings Platform, Ukraine) Friends&Family (Group Messaging Platform, Ukraine)