TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Humanities and Social Science

HOTEL RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM

A PROJECT PROPOSAL

Submitted to
Department of Computer Application
Ed-mark College

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelors in Computer Application

Submitted by

Santosh Ale Magar

Reg. No: 6-2-727-16-2019

July, 2024
Table of Content

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................1
2. Problem Statement .................................................................................................................1
3. Objective ................................................................................................................................2
4. Methodology ..........................................................................................................................2
a. Requirement Identification ..............................................................................................2
i. Study of Existing System.............................................................................................2
ii. Literature Review ........................................................................................................3
iii. Requirement Analysis .................................................................................................4
b. Feasibility Study..............................................................................................................5
i. Technical feasibility.....................................................................................................5
ii. Operational feasibility..................................................................................................5
iii. Economic feasibility ....................................................................................................5
c. High level design of system ............................................................................................5
i. Methodology of the proposed system..........................................................................5
ii. Flow Chart ...................................................................................................................6
iii. Working Mechanism of Proposed System...................................................................7
iv. Description of Algorithm .............................................................................................7
5. Gantt chart...........................................................................................................................8
6. Expected Outcome ..............................................................................................................9
7. References ........................................................................................................................ 10

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1. Introduction
In today's digital age, the abundance of hotel options available online can make the selection
process overwhelming for travelers. As consumers increasingly rely on digital platforms for
booking accommodations, there is a growing need for intelligent systems that can simplify
and enhance this process. The proposed hotel recommendation system aims to address this
challenge by offering personalized suggestions based on individual preferences, past
behaviors, and contextual factors. By leveraging advanced data analytics and machine
learning techniques, this system not only streamlines the decision-making process for users
but also enhances their overall experience by providing highly relevant and tailored hotel
options. This approach benefits both travelers, by helping them find their ideal
accommodations more efficiently, and hoteliers, by offering insights into customer
preferences that can inform better service and marketing strategies. [1]

2. Problem Statement
Travelers face difficulty in selecting the ideal hotel from an overwhelming number of options
available online. The existing systems often provide generic recommendations that do not
adequately match individual preferences or needs, leading to a suboptimal booking
experience. This lack of personalized suggestions can result in dissatisfaction, misaligned
expectations, and a tedious search process. The problem lies in the absence of a robust, user -
centric recommendation system that leverages data analytics to provide tailored hotel
suggestions based on comprehensive user profiles, preferences, and contextual factors.
Addressing this issue requires developing a system that not only simplifies decision-making
for users but also enhances satisfaction by ensuring a closer match between traveler
expectations and hotel offerings. [2].

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3. Objective
 To improve the booking experience by offering accurate and relevant hotel
recommendations.
 To simplify the hotel selection process for travelers, ensuring that the
recommendations align closely with their expectations and needs.

4. Methodology
a. Requirement Identification
i. Study of Existing System

Hotel recommendation systems have become integral tools in the hospitality industry,
aiding travelers in choosing accommodations that meet their preferences and
requirements. These systems utilize various techniques, ranging from traditional methods
like collaborative filtering to more advanced approaches such as machine learning and
hybrid models. Here's an overview of the key components and technologies commonly
found in existing hotel recommendation systems:

1. Collaborative Filtering (CF)

Collaborative filtering is a widely used approach in recommendation systems, leveraging
the preferences and behaviors of users to suggest hotels.

2. Content-Based Filtering
Content-based filtering recommends hotels by analyzing the features of items and the
user's past interactions. For hotels, these features can include location, amenities, price,
and type. This method builds a profile of user preferences and matches them with hotel
features. While this approach avoids the cold start problem for items, it may not capture
the diverse tastes of users who have broad interests.

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ii. Literature Review
The CF has been explored in many domains of social media (Sun et al., 2014),
restaurant (Liu et al., 2013), and travel (Zheng, Burke, & Mobasher, 2012) with the
objective of making recommendations to consumers. The similar users or items are
identified using a similarity metric (Pappas & Popescu-Belis, 2015) and the evaluation
techniques include Pearson Correlation Coefficient, Spearman Rank Correlation
Coefficient, Cosine Similarity, and Mean-Square Difference. A subset of similar users
or items will be determined by the most similar neighbours of a target user or item.
There are two methods usually used for neighbourhood selection: the similarity
thresholding (Gao & Li, 2010) and the top K-nearest neighbor (Sun et al., 2014). The
preference prediction researches focus on Recommendation task (Kim et al., 2011) and
the Rating prediction task (Sun et al., 2014). In the real world (e.g. social media site or
e-commerce site), each individual user has expressed their preferences only on an
extremely small portion of the products. Therefore, the system is generally insufficient
for identifying similar neighbours for lacking intersection between users or items (Sun
et al., 2014). (Hu, Dou, & Liu, 2012) demonstrated that the CARS can explore
consumers’ interests and present information on items that match consumers’
preferences based on context information. (Adomavicius & Tuzhilin, 2011) showed
there are three recognized paradigms that the contextual information incorporated into
RS are contextual pre-filtering, contextual post-filtering, and contextual modeling. In
this study, the contextual pre-filtering approach is selected for its straightforward
processing and flexibility of justification so the CF can be utilized before or after
computing predictions.

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b. Feasibility Study:
A feasibility study is a crucial step in determining whether a hotel recommendation
system for users is technically, operationally, and economically feasible. Here is a brief
analysis of each feasibility aspect:

i. Technical feasibility: The development of a hotel recommendation system is

technically feasible due to the availability of diverse data sources, scalable cloud
infrastructure, and advanced algorithms. Modern technologies and frameworks
provide the tools needed for accurate and personalized recommendations. With
the necessary technical expertise and robust security measures in place,
implementing such a system is both practical and efficient.
ii. Operational feasibility: The operational feasibility of a hotel recommendation
system is strong due to the availability of skilled professionals, scalable cloud
infrastructure, and user-friendly technologies. Resources for development,
maintenance, and user support are readily accessible, and the system can be
effectively managed within budget. With these factors in place, the system can be
smoothly deployed and operated, ensuring a positive user experience and efficient
performance.
iii. Economic feasibility: The economic feasibility of a hotel recommendation
system is promising as it offers a solid return on investment. The initial
development costs are offset by the potential for increased bookings and customer
satisfaction. Scalable cloud services and existing technologies help keep
operational expenses manageable. With a well-planned budget and potential for
significant revenue gains through improved user engagement and targeted
marketing, the investment in such a system is financially viable.

In conclusion, a feasibility study is a critical step in assessing the viability of a hotel

recommendation system for users from technical, operational, and economic perspectives.
The study helps identify potential challenges and risks, and enables decision-makers to
make informed decisions on whether to proceed with the project or not.

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c. High level design of system:
i. Methodology of the proposed system
Waterfall Model is a sequential model that divides software development into pre-defined
phases. Each phase must be completed before the next phase can begin with no overlap
between the phases. Each phase is designed for performing specific activity during the
SDLC phase. It is a project management approach thatemphasizes a linear progression
from beginning to end of project.

Fig: Waterfall model of Software Development Lifecycle

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ii. Flow Chart
Following figure shows the overall activities of the “Hotel Recommendation System”.

Fig: Flow chart of Hotel Recommendation System.

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iii. Working Mechanism of Proposed System
- The proposed hotel recommendation system operates by first collecting data from
diverse sources such as user profiles, hotel databases, reviews, and contextual details
like travel dates and purposes. This data is then processed to create detailed user
profiles and hotel features. The recommendation engine employs algorithms like
collaborative filtering and content-based filtering to generate personalized
suggestions, integrating contextual factors to refine the recommendations. Hotels are
matched with user preferences and ranked based on relevance and user ratings. These
recommendations are presented through an intuitive interface, enabling users to easily
find and compare options. Additionally, user feedback and interactions are
continuously gathered to enhance the system’s accuracy and improve future
recommendations.

iv. Description of Algorithm

Collaborative Filtering (CF):

 User-Based CF: Identify users with similar preferences and recommend hotels
liked by these similar users.

 Item-Based CF: Recommend hotels that are similar to those the user has
previously rated or booked.

Content-Based Filtering:

Analyze hotel features and match them with user preferences to recommend hotels
with similar attributes.

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5. Gantt chart

Fig: Gantt Chart

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 6. Expected Outcome
Here are some specific outcomes that can be expected from such a system:

 A hotel recommendation system aims to provide personalized hotel suggestions, enhance

user experience, boost booking rates, and improve customer satisfaction. It also helps ho tels
target potential guests better and can give the platform a competitive edge.

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7. References

, X., Jin, T., Guo, L., & Zhang, T. (2014). Collaborative filtering recommendation
model based on multi-objective optimization. Journal of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, 2014, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/238564

, Y., Gu, Q., & Jin, X. (2013). A collaborative filtering based approach for restaurant
recommendation. Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Information
and Knowledge Management, 1231-1234. https://doi.org/10.1145/2505515.2507882

, Z., Burke, R., & Mobasher, B. (2012). Recommendation with differential

privacy. Proceedings of the Sixth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, 125-132.
https://doi.org/10.1145/2365952.2365986

, N., & Popescu-Belis, A. (2015). Sentiment analysis of user comments for one-
class collaborative filtering over TED talks. Proceedings of the 2015 Conference on
Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, 1215-1221.
https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/D15-1144

, M., & Li, J. (2010). A survey of contextual recommendation systems. Proceedings

of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Management of Innovation & Technology,
754-757. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICMIT.2010.5492751

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