It was not long ago when doing travel research would take so much amount of time, manpower and other resources.

I was a tourism research officer in 1989 and during that time, in order to gather a decent amount of information about a not-so-well-known tourist attraction, it would literally take me two days doing research through very few travel-related resources. There was even one private company that partnered with the Department of Tourism. They put in more than 20 encoders and researchers and worked for about two years just to gather and encode travel information for ONE country.

Of course, tourism information was one of my obsessions. Together with friends and business partners, we developed the only comprehensive CD on tourist attractions in the Philippines. Even the defunct info thru text was a major part of my travel career. I even wrote a reference book on domestic tourism which listed as many tourist attractions as possible.

But now, with the advances in technology and a huge amount of data in the internet, I am able to develop a travel information system that can answer a good number of tourism-related queries that one may have when planning to explore other places. And a better news is, its coverage is GLOBAL! So here’s the Attractions in Destinations where anybody who may wonder whether a place he is planning to visit would have something to offer for his interest. Say he would be interested in scuba diving in a particular place (example - Cebu), all he has to type is “diving in Cebu” then the app can give the user a focused answer about scuba diving in the destination. Oh, you can also ask for the best dining, hotel or resort in the place of your interest. There are times when the app would be generous in giving more information. To use the app, please follow this LINK or tap the photo below.

Unlike the Google search where you are provided an array of links, this app can immediately give you what you are looking for, or at least an idea to make your research thru other means more effective and quicker.

However, since the app gathers information in the internet, there would be chances that it cannot deliver satisfactory information, specially if there is zero or minimal amount of information. So you have to take with a grain of salt its answers and I would really encourage you to validate the info thru more research if you are serious in visiting a destination.

There’s also this partner app I made that is the ITINERARY BUILDER. It has been getting good reviews from very useful to very entertaining. You can also use the app thru this LINK or by tapping the photo.

The times are indeed very exciting as I am personally witnessing how technology is making life convenient for the people, and let me just say, very stressful for many as it keeps us tied to work and career for many more hours instead of having an undivided time with our families and rest hours. Whew! What a segue!

But hey, since it is already here, let’s choose to make our work and opportunities much easier with AI.