An ontology-based approach is a promising solution to the problem of semantic interoperability in e-tourism. This article presents a method to build a reference ontology from online heterogeneous tourist attraction classification systems. The method is based on formal concept analysis. The similarity of the derived concepts is examined by looking at their extensional and intensional components. The experiment indicates that the proposed method is effective for the construction of reference ontology in e-tourism.

Key words: Semantic interoperability; Ontology; Formal concept analysis; Concept similarity; e-tourism