Exploring a Virtual Pet to Provide Context Notifications in a Tourism Recommender System: a Pilot Study
Patr\'icia Alves, Joana Neto, Ana Barreiro, Jorge Lima, Fausto Alves, Henish Balu, Lu\'is Concei\c{c}\~ao, Goreti Marreiros

TL;DR
This pilot study explores using a virtual pet as a social mediator to deliver context-aware notifications in a tourism recommender system, aiming to reduce intrusiveness and improve user acceptance.
Contribution
The paper introduces a pet-mediated notification framework and demonstrates its potential to enhance user experience in real-world tourism scenarios.
Findings
Virtual pet softens perceived intrusiveness of alerts
Character-mediated justifications improve notification clarity
Participants found pet-mediated alerts more natural and acceptable
Abstract
While context-aware personalization has been widely explored in modern tourism Recommender Systems (RS), the delivery of real-time notifications remains a significant design challenge due to issues of intrusiveness and user fatigue. This paper presents a proof-of-concept for a tourism recommendation framework that utilizes a virtual pet as a social mediator for delivering context-aware alerts. The system integrates real-time environmental data - including air quality, noise levels, and weather forecasts - and proximity-based notifications with a Multi-Agent Microservice that generates personalized recommendations based on the user's personality traits and preferences. A within-subjects pilot study (n=11) was conducted to evaluate the feasibility and user acceptance of this pet-mediated approach. Participants interacted with two versions of the system - a baseline without contextual…
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