Sustainable tourism mobile application for promoting ecotourism

Chuah, Jia Jian (2026) Sustainable tourism mobile application for promoting ecotourism. Final Year Project, UTAR.

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Abstract

The project tackles the glaring gap between the fast-paced globalization and expansion of the tourism sector worldwide and the lack of integration of sustainability into current digital travel platforms. Despite the exponential growth of the tourism sector, with reported increases of up to 6% in arrival numbers in 2023, current travel applications tend to favour commercial considerations while overlooking their environmental impact. Traditional applications mostly focus on itinerary creation and commercial considerations without incorporating elements of sustainability. This paper introduces Lumo, an application designed for the Android platform that integrates sustainability into the overall digital travel experience. The application helps users engage in sustainable practices by incorporating geo-targeted eco-alerts, tips, and a platform that provides stakeholders with an opportunity to share their voices. Technically, the application was developed using Kotlin and Jetpack Compose to ensure a fast and responsive user interface for the Android platform. The backend architecture relies on Firebase to provide real-time data synchronization, security, user authentication, and impact analysis. One technical innovation involved in the project is Atomic Backend Synchronization based on Firebase Firestore WriteBatch, which helps preserve the consistency of multi-day plans and metadata. The use of an Iterative Prototyping approach alongside Agile sprints helped make the system technically robust. The overall architecture of the system is built on the MVVM principle. The effectiveness of Lumo can be demonstrated through a multidimensional assessment approach. It was confirmed that Lumo performs well, with smooth navigation and ease of use on mid-range smartphones, while its specially designed Carbon Footprint Quantification Engine aims to provide accurate calculations for given travel scenarios. In addition, the application includes learning materials and social storytelling modules known as "Green Stories", which strive to raise users' sustainability awareness by at least 20%, according to pre- and post-use survey results. Through its ability to transform passive travel experiences into proactive conservation practices, Lumo acts as an innovative digital travel companion that establishes a new model for sustainable tourism in the modern digital age.

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