A Characterization of Access Profiles and Navigation in E-Commerce: A Tourism Application

Abstract

Currently, it has been observed an increasing popularization of e-commerce. Thus, in areas such as tourism, online retailers are dealing with different challenges such as performance, scalability and personalization. In this context, it is fundamental to understand the characteristics of the user requests, and the access patterns of users on these systems. In this work we analyze the workload of a tourism Web system, which has on average six thousand unique daily access. We present a characterization of users sessions, their requests, and their navigation profile. As results we identify the distinct user profiles and we understand the navigation and access patterns of these users and we define a methodology of profiles and workload characterization that can be used in any other type of system, not only in tourism applications.