Current State and Future Trends in Location Recommender Systems

Technological developments in mobile devices enabled the utilization of geographical data for social networks. Accordingly, location-based social networks have become very attractive. The popularity of location-based social networks has prompted researchers to study recommendation systems for location-based services. There are many studies that develop location recommendation systems using various variables and algorithms. However, articles detailing past and present studies, and making future suggestions, are limited. Therefore, this study aims to thoroughly review the research performed on location recommender systems. For this purpose, topic pairs; “location and recommender system” and “location and recommendation system” were searched in the Web of Knowledge database. Resulting articles were examined in detail with respect to data sources and variables, algorithms, and evaluation techniques used. Thus, the current state of location recommender systems research is summarized and future recommendations are provided for researchers and developers. It is expected that the issues presented in this paper will advance the discussion of next generation location recommendation systems.