VOYAGER – Smart Travel Guidance Cross Platform Mobile Application

Abstract

The tourism industry is one of the largest industries that contribute to the worldwide economy. Also, it is one of the best income sources in Sri Lanka. It makes a considerable amount of money directly and indirectly through contributing to the government budget, job market and foreign exchange earnings. Same as foreign visitors, a significant amount of domestic travelers contributes to the economy in Sri Lanka. Hence, the tourism industry is popular in Sri Lanka; this research aims to enhance travelers’ travelling experience. When considering today’s travel communities, there are a set of unanswered questions that travelers tend to find answers manually from forums and social media because of the lack of features in the current apps. This paper discusses the development of the “Voyager – Smart travel guidance mobile application” to fulfil the gap between current apps and user requirements. The mobile application mainly focuses on the following features; smart travel plan within the desired travel period, shortest and scenic path options, automatic review categorizing and rating system, place tagging and place feature extracting system, fuel data analyzer, and one-tap emergency guidance feature. Despite the previous mentioned features, the final mobile application includes a friends system between app users, group travel planning, and an in-app chat system. As a result of the research project, this user-friendly mobile application will provide a better user experience when travelling, and it will help to develop the tourism culture in Sri Lanka.