We know -- of all people, the ones at TripAdvisor-- that places have a lot more meaning to us than their mere physical existence. They evoke memories and elicit strong emotions.
We learn about places through books, and movies, and songs -- from the creator to the consumer, and when that happens often enough, through everyone everywhere else in the popular culture. We read books of places, and about traveling to places, watch movies that happen in other, wonderful places. We learn about hose places from what could be called 'high' art. Conversely, once such knowledge gets common enough, it starts edging towards cliche: that of Los Angeles as the Gomorrah of Gambling and Amsterdam as a hippie heaven.
Imagine someone who just had a lovely long vacation at a far-away (or not so far!) destination. We want to keep in touch with the places we've been to, and yet, life passes on. Imagine if keeping touch with the pop cultures of the places you have loved got much more convenient.
Or imagine form the other end: getting prepared for a new cultural experience before traveling their, a sort of educational-entertainment itinerary built along with the actual travel journey.
The experience cultivated by travel (and conversely, by art, knowledge, entertainment) is quite enriched by engaging in art, and entertainment related(travel).
By associating a work of art and entertainment with the related geographical information, we give users a convenient way to explore the reality of the money. A strategically placed advertisement for vacation in scenic European lands after (or during) a showing of a Grand Budapest would be hardly complained about. Thus, the cross pollination between travel and other forms of entertainment only support one another.
By building a database of works of popular culture associated with a geographical region, we are making such interactions even stronger. The user's experience with a location is enhanced through references (and consumption of) knowledge to popular culture while creating new revenue streams for those making it possible,
Using Natural language processing, geographical tagging, and tripAdvisor API, I create maps of all the places represented in popular movies. In addition, the context of the mentioning of the geographical location is presented too, along with links to the video/audio/other connections related to the reference, where possible. Users can explore either by movies, or my geographical locations, and can easily create travel itineraries based on a location's relevance in popular culture.
This could be further worked on to create a web of connections of locations and works of arts, for these separate fields to connect more strongly and naturally.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.