Automatic knowledge exchanging between tourists via mobile devices

Purpose – The paper aims to present an approach for services in the domain of tourism based on a software application in the area of ontology engineering, showing a methodology for intelligent knowledge‐based P2P networks creation, in the tourism knowledge domain, given that, potential tourists share and organize their experiences, interests and knowledge. Using the proposed software application, they automatically exchange their knowledge, with an intelligent and transparent way, with other users that have the same or similar interests and make use of it. Design/methodology/approach – The approach followed was categorizing tourism‐related interests and services into ontologies (system and user), then comparing them, using intelligent algorithms, suggesting new, unknown to the user, interests. The data were evaluated by experts in order to provide a guide for correct (according to the expert) interestingness of profile concepts. Findings – The paper presents the outcomes of the software used, running on mobile devices, showing the connection for them, among user knowledge profiles and tourism services. It has been found that the return results (concepts) are of high interestingness to the user. Research limitations/implications – Experiments have been performed with one central ontology, used as reference and two user ontologies at the same time. The authors would suggest more experimentation, with more users connected concurrently. Practical implications – Of high practical importance is the creation of intelligent social networking processes and user communities based on interests for further e‐commerce activities, based on a semantic framework. Originality/value – The paper fulfils the need for intelligent interaction and distribution of knowledge and content to users in an autonomous way, anywhere.