A Natural Language Query Interface for Tourism Information

With the increasing amount of information available on the Internet one of the most challenging tasks is to provide search interfaces that are easy to use without having to learn a specific syntax. Hence, we present a query interface exploiting the intuitiveness of natural language for the largest Austrian web-based tourism platform Tiscover. Furthermore, we will describe the results and our insights from analyzing the natural language queries collected during a field trial in which the interface was promoted via the Tiscover homepage. This analysis shows how users formulate queries when their imagination is not limited by conventional search interfaces with structured forms consisting of check boxes, radio buttons and special-purpose text fields. The results of this field test are thus valuable indicators into which direction the web-based tourism information system should be extended to better serve the customers.