Gai Gai: an AI tour guide & social connector for travelers

• Main Author: Goh, Zong Han
• Other Authors: Ling Keck Voon
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Computer hardware, software and systems
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/158292
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The internet has made it extremely easy for travel enthusiasts to plan their own itineraries without the need to engage costly travel agencies. Information about the world is now readily available and highly accessible through search engines like Google. Booking sites such as Agoda and AirBnb enable tourists to book flight tickets and accommodations at optimized rates. Review sites like Google Reviews, TripAdvisor and independent travel blogs allow tourists to tap into the wisdom of the crowd when trying to figure out where to go and what to do. Tools such as Google Maps and Google Translate allow tourists to feel right at home in a foreign land. However, this abundance of information has presented a new problem: tourists are often inundated with information when scouring the web for suggestions, which can often be overwhelming. Herein lies the opportunity for innovation: a focus on aggregation, analysis, summarisation and optimisation of what’s already out there. Much value can be derived from helping users make sense of vast amounts of information and generating actionable recommendations based on user preferences, eliminating unnecessary guesswork when trying to plan the perfect itenary. In this project, by embracing modern technology stacks, automation and natural language processing capabilities, we explore the development of Gaigai, a Flutter mobile application that seeks to emulate the experience of having a local tour guide by telling tourists where to go, what to know and perhaps even who to meet during their self-guided travels.