Bidirectional e-commerce platform for tourism in low-density regions: The Douro Valley case study

With the constant ICT evolution, the way users interact with e-commerce platforms (EC) is changing and there are constantly emerging new needs both from customers, such as the possibility of customization and individual personalization, and from business operators. As argued by existing literature, EC is a very relevant tool for the overall development of territories, especially those with inherent constraints, such as low-density regions. This work seeks to propose, through a functional and technical analysis, an electronic commerce platform of tourism products and services that allows both the traditional commercialization of products and, in parallel, the negotiation in (almost) real time of tourism products and services, idealized by customers themselves, to which operators can reply via the platform itself.