A knowledge organization framework for influencing tourism-centered place-making

Abstract

PurposeThis study demonstrates the synthesis of a knowledge organization framework from tourist reviews and an ontological model with its implementation in graph database, which is based on this framework. The aim is to influence place-making outcomes at tourist destinations.Design/methodology/approachThe faceted classification approach has been used for generating and validating the framework based on online reviews about urban tourism parks. The framework was used to develop an ontology using Protégé ontology editor that was implemented using GraphDB.FindingsThree fundamental facet categories, namely Component, Aspect and Outcome, each consisting of several sub-facets, were synthesized from the analyses of the reviews. Besides helping in constructing the ontology, the analysis also helped in calculating an importance-score for the reviews that helped in ranked information retrieval.Research limitations/implicationsThe analyses of the reviews were done manually and may carry human bias. But it is robust as it is based on a canonical faceted methodology.Practical implicationsIt is envisaged that this study will help tourist destination planners in decision-making by easing the utilization of tourist generated reviews by the knowledge management systems they use. Opinions of tourists will be induced in destination planning thereby helping in the production of quality “places.”Originality/valueThe presented faceted framework aims to specifically aid knowledge organization pertaining to online reviews related to tourist destinations. The focus is on organizing knowledge to facilitate tourism development for better place-making outcomes, which is an important area of research though it has little contributions.