Knowledge Graphs for Online Marketing and Sales of Touristic Services

Abstract

Direct online marketing and sales are nowadays an essential part of almost any business that addresses an end consumer, such as in tourism. On the downside, the data and content required for such marketing and sales are typically distributed, and difficult to identify and use, especially for small and medium enterprises. Further, a combination of content management and semantics for automated online marketing and sales is becoming practically feasible now, especially with the global adoption of knowledge graphs. A design and feasibility pilot of a solution implementing semantic content and data value chain for online direct marketing and sales, basing on knowledge graphs, and efficiently addressing multiple channels and stakeholders, is provided and evaluated with the end-users. The implementation is shown to be suitable for the use on the Web, social media and mobile channels. The proof of concept addresses the tourism sector, exploring, in particular, the case of touristic service packaging, and is applicable globally. The typically encountered challenges, particularly, the ones related to data quality, are identified, and the ways to overcome them are discussed. The paper advances the knowledge of employment of knowledge graphs in online marketing and sales, and showcases its related innovative practical application, co-created by the industry providing marketing and sales solutions for Austria, one of the world’s leading touristic regions.