SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INTEGRATING AND DISPLAYING TRAVEL ADVICES GATHERED FROM A PLURALITY OF RELIABLE SOURCES

• US 20080319649A1
• Filed: 06/20/2007
• Published: 12/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amadeus S.A.S. (Amadeus Global Travel Distribution S.A.)
• Original Assignee: Amadeus S.A.S. (Amadeus Global Travel Distribution S.A.)
• Inventors: NATH, Gourabmoy
• Granted Patent: US 7,818,117 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/14 Travel agencies

Abstract

A computerized travel system and a method for providing advices and warnings per travel destination to end-users. The system has a client service module for receiving queries from the end-users, and delivering to them merged reports of travel advices and warnings for the queried travel destinations. A download and parsing module parses travel raw documents, downloaded from a plurality of online reliable travel sources, into cleaned raw documents sharing a common formatting structure including sections, sections headers and paragraphs. An algorithmic module integrates the cleaned raw documents into the merged reports of travel advices and warnings per travel destination. The integration is performed from a base document chosen among all the relevant clean raw documents for each queried travel destination. Comparable sections are determined on the basis of contents of their section headers and semantically close paragraphs are placed next to each other in corresponding sections of merged reports.

Claims

1. A computerized travel system (100) for providing advices and warnings per travel destination to end-users of the travel system, comprising:

a client service module (110) for receiving queries (112) from the end-users and delivering merged reports (114) of travel advices and warnings for queried travel destinations;

a download and parsing module (130) for parsing travel raw documents downloaded from a plurality of online reliable travel sources (170) into cleaned raw documents sharing a common formatting structure including sections (350), sections headers (352) and paragraphs (354);

an algorithmic module (140) for integrating the cleaned raw documents into the merged reports of travel advices and warnings per travel destination;

a relational database (120) for storing and retrieving all travel information and controls to operate the travel system including the cleaned raw documents and the merged reports;

an administrative module (150) to manage and control the building and delivery of the merged reports to the end-users of the travel system.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the integration of the cleaned raw documents into merged reports (340) is performed from a base document (330) chosen among all the relevant clean raw documents (310, 320, and 330) for each queried travel destination.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein comparable sections are determined on the basis of contents of their section headers (352).

4. The system of claim 1 wherein semantically close paragraphs of comparable sections are placed next to each other (360) in the corresponding sections of the merged reports (340).

5. The system of claim 4 wherein semantic similarities of clean raw document paragraphs are evaluated on the basis of a reduced set of content-bearing keywords per paragraph and wherein similarity scores are computed versus the corresponding base paragraphs (420).

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the insertion of the paragraphs in sections of the merged reports is performed as a function of their similarity scores.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the algorithmic module (140) further filters contents of any of the travel advice documents (242) for the purpose of printing or displaying only part of the travel advices and warnings.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein filtering (240) is performed on the basis of semantic filters including filtering of recommendations and events.

15. The system of claim 2, wherein comparable sections are determined on the basis of contents of their section headers (352).

16. The system of claim 2, wherein semantically close paragraphs of comparable sections are placed next to each other (360) in the corresponding sections of the merged reports (340).

17. The system of claim 3, wherein semantically close paragraphs of comparable sections are placed next to each other (360) in the corresponding sections of the merged reports (340).

9. A method in a travel system of integrating advices and warnings from a plurality of individual travel advice documents, comprising:

receiving queries for advices and warnings for travel destinations (210);

getting individual travel advice documents (220) from a database of the travel system;

parsing the individual travel advice documents into cleaned raw documents (230) sharing a common formatting structure including sections, sections headers and paragraphs;

integrating the cleaned raw documents into merged reports of travel advices and warnings per travel destination (250), the integrating step including the further step of choosing, among all the relevant clean raw documents, a base document from which integration is performed;

delivering the merged reports of travel advices and warnings for the queried travel destinations to end-users of the travel system (260).

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the step of getting individual travel advice documents (220) from the database is replaced by the steps of:

if documents are not available or outdated in the database,

building or updating a master table of reliable data sources of travel advices and warning (222);

downloading the raw documents from the reliable data sources listed in the master table (224).

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the integrating step includes the further steps of:

with respect to the base document used to produce the merged report,

determining which sections of the cleaned raw documents are comparable on the basis of their section headers (410);

comparing each paragraph contents within comparable sections (420), further comprising;

identifying content-bearing keywords in current paragraph of base document (421);

identifying content-bearing keywords in compared paragraph of cleaned raw document (422);

identifying vector spaces for evaluating paragraph similarities (423);

measuring paragraph similarities to obtain a similarity score (424);

inserting the compared paragraph into the merged report as a function of its similarity score.

12. The method, at claim 9, wherein contents of any of the travel advice documents (242) is further filtered (240) for the purpose of printing or displaying only part of the travel advices and warnings.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the filtering step (240) includes filtering on the basis of semantic filters including filtering of recommendations and events.

14. A computer program product stored on a computer readable storage medium (105), comprising computer readable code means for causing at least one computer to operate the method of integrating travel advices and warnings according to claim 9.

18. The method, at claim 10, wherein contents of any of the travel advice documents (242) is further filtered (240) for the purpose of printing or displaying only part of the travel advices and warnings.

19. The method, at claim 11, wherein contents of any of the travel advice documents (242) is further filtered (240) for the purpose of printing or displaying only part of the travel advices and warnings.