Mobile recommender systems in tourism

Recommender Systems (RSs) have been extensively utilized as a means of reducing the information overload and offering travel recommendations to tourists. The emerging mobile RSs are tailored to mobile device users and promise to substantially enrich tourist experiences, recommending rich multimedia content, context-aware services, views/ratings of peer users, etc. New developments in mobile computing, wireless networking, web technologies and social networking leverage massive opportunities to provide highly accurate and effective tourist recommendations that respect personal preferences and capture usage, personal, social and environmental contextual parameters. This article follows a systematic approach in reviewing the state-of-the-art in the field, proposing a classification of mobile tourism RSs and providing insights on their offered services. It also highlights challenges and promising research directions with respect to mobile RSs employed in tourism. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.