Guiding Your Travel Journey with Your Smartphone

With an increasing number of people owning smartphones and using them as effective tools to search for information, developing a Vietnam travel guide application on them could be a unique competitive product.

Integrating Multiple Features

As an active member of Trip Advisor – the world's leading travel advisory and experience sharing platform, every time I finish writing a review about a tourist spot, restaurant, or hotel, especially in Vietnam, I receive messages from other members asking for more detailed information.

Through these exchanges, I've noticed that they often use search tools on the Internet to plan their trips, mostly from websites created by Westerners. According to these members, travel information from websites of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism or Tan Son Nhat Airport is often too basic, incomplete, and not up-to-date.

Developing an application that can run smoothly on both Apple and Android devices is certainly not too difficult. The internet and WiFi coverage in our country is relatively extensive, so travelers can easily access or download it.

Not only a trendy approach but also an effective integration of multiple features, different applications, helping users quickly access necessary information instead of searching on multiple different websites.

For instance, integrating Google Maps could automatically locate users' positions, once identified, it would immediately display functions such as advice on where to go, local specialties to try, recommended restaurants, shopping options, nearby bars, good hotels, possible homestays, local customs and traditions...

These pieces of information could be integrated from Trip Advisor (of course, with the permission and consent of the brand management company whose information we want to integrate) or from those who have visited Vietnam and are willing to share their experiences through the app we are discussing.

Another feature that could be integrated is a function to learn basic Vietnamese conversational phrases. This demand is real because almost every foreign friend who comes to Vietnam asks me to help them learn a few basic Vietnamese phrases, and they all seem very interested, patient to remember, pronounce, and then use in the app!

Phrases like 'Excuse me! How much?' or 'One beer, please' from the mouths of tourists are their way of immersing themselves in the local culture's flow, rather than standing outside looking in, quietly coming and going.

Vietnamese has an advantage over Thai, Chinese, or Korean because it uses the Latin alphabet, meaning that most tourists can read, recognize characters, and remember them.

Mutual Benefits

If this app is researched, successfully implemented, and made available for free download, it can be promoted through social networks, flyers, guides at train stations, airports, hotels, through newspapers, media, helping both domestic and international tourists to know about it.

The immediate and most significant benefit is for the tourists themselves, as they will have a handy 'guidebook' with many utilities, avoiding the need to carry heavy, bulky books while still having all the necessary information.

Independent travelers will surely enjoy being able to pronounce basic communication phrases using this app, quickly knowing what interesting things are available at their destination.

For group tour travelers, they will also know about good eateries, interesting shopping spots without worrying about where to go or what to do when tours usually allow tourists to have a few meals or half a day, a day to explore freely.

This will also be an opportunity for tour operators, restaurants, hotels, airlines, provinces, and cities to promote themselves, attract additional customers. A web version of this app could also be deployed to attract non-smartphone users.

In the long run, additional features can be implemented regarding weather, traffic, exchange rates, photo sharing, travel videos... contributed by the travelers themselves into this app.

For the map section, besides the usual navigation function, it could be expanded to include a brief introduction to street names, so that travelers not only find their way but also learn more about the historical figures or landmarks that the street is named after.

Similarly, instead of simply updating generic information about destinations, a few stories, myths, or legends could be added to explain local customs, place names. Surely every traveler would be delighted to learn more about such things.

Source: Tuoitre.vn

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Reference: Travel Handbook from Mytour