System architecture and feature design for engineering a web-based travel advisor system: FanOnTour

Many Advisor Systems have been designed and developed to assist us in decision-making, each with their strengths and weaknesses. A popular type of Advisor systems is Travel Advisor systems that assist travelers in their travel arrangements. We have designed and implemented a Travel Advisor system to assist travelers, evaluating a number of factors after analyzing the features of other Travel Advisor systems. These factors are travelers' budgets, distance, their friends' interests, individual and group interests, dislikes, transportation mode and travel histories. We demonstrate the validity of the solution using case studies and usability testing results. In this study, our major goal is to measure the system's usability both with participants who previously travelled to the location and with participants who have never been there to investigate if familiarity correlates with positive rating of the system features. Our findings state that familiarity with the location correlates with positive rating of system's features.