An Approach to the Integration of Expert Systems and Hypermedia Technology in Developing a Prototype Tourist Information System for Ethiopia,
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Date
1997-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In Africa, though the potential for tourism is said to be much higher, the number of tourists
arrived at the continent and revenue generated from this sector is very low as compared
with the other continents. Lack of technical persons to provide relevant and sufficient
information to the tourists is one of the main stumbling blocks for development of tourism
in Africa
Ethiopia is no exception to this. There is only one training institute (called CITI) which
has trained 59 tour guides and travel operators; at least 23% of them don't work in the
tourism sector. On the other hand the number of tour operators and travel agencies in the
country is highly increasing just after 1990 and now they are altogether 109. These tour
operators and travel agencies are acting as a tourism information center (TIC) in providing
information to the tourists coming to the country.
In Ethiopia, usually the media that are used to promote tourism are guide books, brochures,
flyers, amI few documentary films . In all these media, the information is organized in a
linear way and the user has to search all over the document from beginning to the end until
he/she has got the required information. Had the information been organized in such a way
that the user can easily branch out from one chunk of information to the other in a
meaningful way with all types of media, it would have saved the time of the user and
increase also the level of understanding. Hypermedia system, which incorporates textual
databases, sound, animation, video, still pictures and other type of media, can support the \
facilities mentioned above. In a hypermedia system, the intonation nodes are organized in
a non linear way so that the users can easily navigate around the knowledge corpses.
Utilities of such databases can be enhanced by developing an expert interface on top of it to
provide guidance to the users.
In this study an attempt has been made to develop an integrated expert and hypermedia
system to guide tourists planning to visit Ethiopia. The knowledge base for the expert
system was acquired from one experienced tour guide and two of his trainees. The acquired
knowledge was represented in a hierarchical model and a production rule method was used
to map the knowledge base for computer programming. Information for the textual
database and still pictures for the hypermedia system were taken from various guide books
and brochures and the recorded 'sound was taken from the concerned organizations.
KnowledgePro was used as a tool for developing the prototype. The prototype expert and
hypermedia components were integrated at three levels. The first was at the start of the
system i.e. the user will be asked whether he/she is in need of assistance. If yes expert
system will run otherwise the user will be taken to the hypermedia knowledge corpses. The
second situation is at the end of the expert systems' suggestion. After the user is advised to
visit a particular tourist site, there is an explanation about that selected tourist site using the
hypermedia system. The third position where these two systems are integrated is using the
two buttons found on each system. One button is labeled as 'Hypermedia' on expert system
module and the other button is labeled as Expert' on hypermedia system module. Using
these two buttons the user can go from one system to the other easily at any time
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Keywords
Information Science