| dc.description.abstract |
In most developing countries, tourism is one of the important revenues generating sectors. Tourism is a leading economy in Kenya; it is the second largest foreign exchange earner and the third largest contributor to GDP in the country. However, in Kenya, the tourism sector has not been developing at the desired rate. One of the major means of tourism development is to promote it through geo-marketing to attract people. Although Kenya is rich in potential tourist attraction sites, due to inadequate and insufficient promotion of tourism, deficiencies in website information, including lack of maps and up-to-date information, have become an obstacle in the development of this sector.
These research aims at in coming up with a tourist guiding system that would provide much needed solutions to these gaping problems. The tourist guiding system provides a platform for promoting tourism in the country through provision of up-to-date interactives maps and information on tourist attractions, facilities such as hotels and banks and transport routes.
The main objective of the present research was to develop a GIS enabled online interactive application for tourists which included designing a spatial database, developing a tourist feedback mechanism and developing a web-based GIS application. This was be developed with Web-GIS open source software, MapServer, and the Django framework, and was designed to provide access to users. In this research, a Web-GIS model was developed for Mombasa county in Kenya. The methodology of designing the Web-GIS followed the Web Development Life Cycle for the development of the Web GIS. WDLC steps included; problem identification and definition, GIS analysis and database design, Web-GIS development, system installation, testing the model and finally implementation of the model. This was followed by monitoring of the system in order to assess the success of the model and updating the application.
At the end of the study and research the results include a user-oriented Web GIS application which include the following features: user interactive maps showing tourist sites, banks, accommodation facilities, routes and prices charged in the tourist sites and accommodation facilities, and other additional information on the facilities and sites such as text and pictures. The system also provides a platform through which recommendations or reviews from other tourists who have used the facilities or who have toured the sites were presented in the application. |
en_US |