A Framework for Guiding Travelers and Promoting of
Different Tourist Destinations in the Philippines Using
Mobile Platform
Emeliza R Yabut Charles Michael C. Te
National University – Philippines National University – Philippines
College of Computer Studies College of Computer Studies
eryabut@national-u.edu.ph charlesmichaelte@gmail.com
Jan Patrick A. Villadores Marilou N. Jamis
National University – Philippines National University – Philippines
College of Computer Studies College of Computer Studies
villadoresjpa15@gmail.com mnjamis@national-u.edu.ph
Abstract – In the current generation, people are more into
traveling more than ever. They like to record their
experiences in places they had been to; share their
experiences through telling their tales. Today, mobile
devices are mostly their means of recording (storing)
those experiences. Mobile applications can be used such
as; photo/video albums, note takers, and a social media
application of their preference. The objective of the study
is to develop a mobile app that will guide travelers and
will promote the different tourist destinations in the
Philippines. PhilTrip will be a mobile application that is
specifically for those who are eager, passionate, and
enthusiastic about traveling in the Philippines. The
proposed mobile application will enable the travelers
(users) to share their travel experiences all the while
promoting the destinations and the Philippines itself.
Keywords: Geotagging, Travel, Tips and Guidelines,
Mobile Application, Geographic Information
I. INTRODUCTION
A traveler is a person who is traveling different places
and enjoy the personal growth that occurs within the
experience and people they meet [1]. To keep the memories
experienced by the traveler, they preserve pictures using
digital cameras, video by handy cameras or buy some
souvenir.
Mobile phones portability is one feature that can help
travelers. Being a high tech of most mobile phones, the
needs of bringing different gadget are reducing, and it has the
characteristics of electronic devices [2].
People nowadays are relying more on their mobile
devices and mobile applications as mediums for recording
and sharing their travel experiences. Smartphones can aid in
mediating the psychological aspects of travel or touristic
expertise of traveler, through the facilitation of information
search, processing, and sharing. Travelers will be able to
978-1-5386-0912-5/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Ermarie Nicole L. Faeldonea Cyril M. Lepiten
National University – Philippines National University – Philippines
College of Computer Studies College of Computer Studies
ermarie.nicole20@gmail.com foodprocessing01@gmail.com
Rosauro E. Manuel
National University – Philippines
College of Computer Studies
remanuel@national-u.edu.ph
learn new travel possibilities, information, and better travel
destinations by sharing images or any form of shareable
media in the occurrence of social activities during travels [3].
There are Filipinos who are already engaged, passionate
and enthusiastic in traveling, and there are those who are or
were just recently interested in moving. The Philippines is a
place that is worth to pay a visit, because of the beauty of its
natural resources and friendly attitude of every Filipino
people [4].
Filipinos today are already engaged and passionate about
the use of mobile applications in traveling. Travelers tend to
share their different travel experiences through posting
pictures and telling their tales and stories about those places
that they had been too using various mediums. A designing
system such as a mobile application for travelers will give
them much more convenient to share their experiences and
tell their tales. Sharing experiences are giving a lot of
information to other people who would also like to visit a
place. Purely, its purpose is to help the user to share their
different travel experiences that will give out information and
knowledge (tips and guidelines) for the travelers and other
users.
II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Mobile Phones today are so very useful in every person’s
life. Developed countries reached the highest percentage rate
because every person often owned more than one mobile
phone. This year the total number of smartphone users
forecast reach 4.77 worldwide [5]. As Google announced that
there are new various Android-based devices released, many
people tend to afford an Android device. One of the
significant challenges is to integrate mobile channels into
existing strategies. The development of a mobile application
is expensive, and they need a considerable investment to
incorporate mobile channels into existing processes. The
development of a mobile application is significant, and they
need to improve each feature to satisfy the user’s needs.
Development of a mobile application may cost a lot. Some
studies show that development and improvement of the
mobile application may require a million of dollars. Even
though some of the mobile application had a favorable
growth, a majority of the mobile application is not
satisfactory as the developer and user expected. By having a
guideline for practicing the developers, it will help them to
develop and evaluate a better mobile application that they
may present to the users. It is essential to the users to know
the importance and usability of a mobile application. A
mobile application is an IT programming software that is
mainly created and designed for mobile operating systems
featured on devices that are reliably portable, such as
smartphones or tablet PCs. Mobile applications are either
pre-installed on mobile phones (tablets) or can download
from different mobile application stores [6].
Travelers prefer and demand to plan and book their tour
packages and itineraries. Travelers are the one who chooses
their trip destination, and they are using an online planning
to reserve their routes. In tour planning, travelers need to
identify and evaluate the place they want to visit. It is
essential to have an overview of a destination to get some
more information. Using mapping services, travelers may
use this to plan their travel destination. This function plays
an essential role in trip planning and decision-making
process. It will become more effective and efficient in the
planning process by giving some more information and idea
about your travel plan. Web map services may be very
suitable for the travelers to provide more travel information
to organize their itineraries and to plan their trip destinations
accurately. Trip planning can be done frequently and
collaboratively by using a process of six collaborative tasks:
problem identification; where the generation of ideas and
options for traveling was include, information search,
information evaluation; the negotiation and assessment
involved, choice, book, and the post choice. Maps may help
the travelers support and facilitate their decision making in
trip planning and choosing their travel destination. Travelers
may use a map to locate places that they may want to go [7].
the other countries. Improvement of the tourism program of
Batangas Province will help them to encourage many tourists
that will visit the province and its different tourist
destinations [10].
Global Positioning System (GPS) can use to locate exact
locations of a user or traveler, and it can also record different
locations of trip destinations. In Netherlands, the
combination of GPS, GIS, and web-based user interaction
contributes to the improvement of GPS technology which
used for travel surveying. The GPS-based method also
applied to the location and trip destination of visited places.
Through the combination of GPS and GIS, travelers will
enable to determine travel modes and goals. It is also useful
to find a place that a traveler may want to visit. GPS and GIS
may also locate the exact location that a traveler may want to
go or to visit [11].
An example of a mobile application that looks advantage
the GPS is the AppLERT [12]. AppLERT is a mobile
application notifying the responding unit about the incident
using the built-in smart phone’s GPS. It has modules
informing proper authorities to deploy rescue immediately.
The user can report the type of calamity; the incident
happened, a picture of the scene and the location based on
the GPS data. The GPS data will be continuously forwarded
to the command center until the rescuers responded. All
modules use GPS data to send location, send rescue and to
send a report to the command center.
III. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

Images of a vacation destination play an essential role in

travel decision making. Travelers tend to have an overview
of the places they want to visit. Destination image studies
have generated in the tourism literature over the past four
decades. Most of the studies have focused on the image
attributes of a destination, but they have not addressed
characteristics of decision images that affect decisions to
visit places [8].

Philippines need to sustain and develop its ecotourism.

These may lead the country to improve the tourism
environment and attract more tourist to visit the country.
Even local government officials enjoy and appreciate the
beauty of our country, the Philippines. By patronizing our
ecotourism, it may sustain tourism development of our
country today [9].

Improvement of the tourism industry in the Philippines

may also promote socialization among the other countries. It Fig. 1. System Architecture
may improve the economic development of our nation and
the generation of foreign exchange and other activities with
System Architecture
The system architecture as illustrated in Figure #2 shows
the processes involved in the proposed mobile application
and web system. The primary users are the travelers who can
share their travel experiences through this mobile
application. The other users will benefit as other users post
their travel experiences. Users will have more information
about other places and will have an idea if those places are
worth to visit.
This module also has a daily travel trivia which gives the
user information about traveling, tourist destinations and the
Philippines itself. This daily travel trivia will only pop up in
every first access of the user in a day.
Travel Feed Module has a submodule called the
Notification Module. The Notification Module notifies the
user if other users post a new travel experience.
2.) Travel Buddies Module

The role of the users or travellers is to give more
information by sharing their travel experiences and ranking
of their post. By ranking their post, it will be sent to the web
system and will be displayed again in the mobile application
as the top five rated places in the Philippines.
The Travel Buddies Module contains the list of the user’s
travel buddies. The user should connect to Facebook to sync
the list of the travel buddies which also have access to the
application. The user can also view the map and post of
his/her travel buddies. (Fig.3)

The admin is responsible for updating the travel trivia

from the web system and will be sent to the mobile
application to give information to the users. Admin can also
view the different accounts and the top five ranked places.

IV. SYSTEM FEATURES

The features of the mobile application include. 1.) Travel

Feed Module, 2.) Travel Buddies Module, 3.) Suggested
Places Module, and the 4.) Journal Module. Some modules
have sub-module which will be discussed accordingly. On
the other hand, the web system consists of 1.) Statistics
Module 2.) Travel Trivia Module, and 3.) Users Module.

1.) Travel Feed Module

The Travel Feed Module contains a Philippine Map

which allows the user to view the other user's post about their
travel experiences. The map will have a pin; this pin indicates
where the other user's or called the travel buddies have been
visited. (Fig. 2) Once the user clicked the pin, the user will
see all the posts in that specific place.
Fig. 3. Travel Buddies List
3.) Top Ranked Places Module
The Suggested Places Module allows the user to view the
top five ranked places in the Philippines. It also has a weather
forecast to give the user information about the weather of that
certain place. (Fig.4)

Fig. 2. Travel Feed Map

Fig. 4. List of Top Five Ranked Places
4.) Journal Module 6.) Travel Trivia Module

Journal Module also consist of a Philippine Map. In this The Travel Trivia Module consists of different travel
map, the user can see his/her only post on the map. (Fig.5) trivia. The admin is the one responsible for updating the
travel trivia.

Fig. 8. Travel Trivia Module

7.) Users Module

The Users Module consist of the list of the different

account of the users. The admin will able to see the different
Fig. 5. Journal map Fig. 6. Compose Module users who have access to the account.

This module has a submodule of Compose Module. Once

the user clicks this module, the user can post. The user can
add pictures or videos with captions or descriptions and pin
the places that they've visited. The user can also rank the
place that they've visited. (Fig.6) When the user post without
an internet connection, it will go to another sub-module
which is the Draft Module.

The Journal Module has another sub-module which is the

Settings Module. The Settings Module have another two sub-
modules, the Edit Profile, and Edit Password. In the Edit
Profile, the user can change his/her profile picture. The user
can also edit his/her name, e-mail, and username.
5.) Statistics Module
The screenshot below is the Statistics Module has a pie
chart which contains the top five ranked places in the
Philippines ranked by the users.
Fig. 9. Users Module
V. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
Smartphones and social media play a vital role in our
lives today as it permits connectivity in the community
regardless of space. As previously mentioned, Smartphones
are increasingly used throughout the Philippines due to an
increase of local manufacturers of smartphones whose prices
are far less low than those of its counterparts abroad.

The researchers used Mobile Development methodology

in the development of the mobile application. This method is
considered a smart approach to create a tool for users and
develop the application.

TABLE I. LIKERT SCALE

Mean Verbal Interpretation

4.51 – 5.00 Strongly Agree
3.51 – 4.50 Agree
2.51 – 3.50 Slightly Disagree
Fig. 7. Statistic Module 1.51 – 2.50 Disagree
1.00 – 1.50 Strongly Disagree
 The system evaluated by twenty-five (25) respondents [7] Z. Xiang, V. P. Magnini and D. R. Fesenmaier,
or users of smartphones and social media based on the “Information technology and consumer behavior in travel
following criteria: Functionality, Reliability, Usability, and and tourism: Insights from travel planning using the
Maintainability. Also, the grand mean is computed on each internet,” 2015
criterion to get the overall mean and the interpretation as
seen in Table II. [8] S. Cohen, G. Prayag and M. Moital, “Consumer behavior
in tourism: Concepts, influences and opportunities,” 2014
TABLE II. TECHNICAL EVALUATION RESULT
[9] C. Pilapil-Añasco and J. C. Lizada, “Philippines tourism:
Criteria Grand Interpretation Evolution towards sustainability,” 2014
Mean
Functionality 4.61 Strongly Agree [10] A. M. L. Vizconde and S. S. Felicen, “Tourism Industry
Reliability 4.66 Strongly Agree of Batangas Province, Philippines: Basis for Improved
Usability 4.56 Strongly Agree Tourism Program,” 2012
Maintainability 4.64 Strongly Agree
Grand Mean 4.62 Strongly Agree [11] J. Biagioni and J. Eriksson, “Inferring road maps from
global positioning system traces,” 2012

After evaluation and analysis of the system, findings
will be documented for future references. In addition to
that, new test models and the process can be derived from
the conducted evaluation process for prospective developers
to enhance and developed the mobile application for the
bigger perspective.
[12] B. S. Fabito, F. Balahadia, and J. Cabatlao, “AppLERT:
A mobile application for incident and disaster notification for
Metro Manila”, 2016 IEEE Region 10 Symposium
(TENSYMP), p. 288 – 292, 2016

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS

The purpose of the proposed system is to help the

Philippines in its attempt to further promote and enhance the
field of tourism in the country that will lead to contributions
to the overall growth of its economy. Using this application,
users will be able to share their travel experiences in the
Philippines. The researchers recommend its implementation
to active travelers to evaluate and assess its effectiveness.

For future works, it is highly suggested the testing and

implementation of the application in the community to

ensure if the system is effective and efficient. Using this

application might give an improved idea to plan travel
itineraries properly and to visit places that are worth to visit
in the Philippines.

REFERENCES

[1] N. Darlington, “12 Common Characteristics of People

Who Love Traveling,” 2015

[2] K. Devon, “The Growing Significance of Mobile

Phones,” 2014

[3] D. Wang, S. Park and D. R. Fesenmaier, “The role of

smartphones in mediating the touristic experience,” 2012

[4] P. Farrugia, “11 reasons why you must travel to the

Philippines,” 2015

[5] Statista, “Number of mobile phone users worldwide from

2013 to 2019 (in billion),” 2017

[6] H. Hoehle and V. Venkatesh, “Mobile Application

Usability: Conceptualization and Instrument Development,”
2015