Mobile tourism application for Samosir Regency on Android platform

Mobile computing technology brings the opportunity to reach more Internet users and to deliver information directly to their gadgets. This opportunity opens for tourism world in which a mobile application (shortened to be “app”) can be built by developers, distributed it through application market and the users can download and install the application to their gadgets. The application provides contents related to latest tourism information, favorite attraction spots/points of interest, or offers from some service providers. However, not all areas in Indonesia have their own app for promoting local tourism. In this research, a mobile tourism application is designed and built for Samosir Regency, the regency that is in North Sumatera Province of Indonesia. The application has functionalities that are proposed based on taxonomy of tourism mobile application. The application implements Google Map Application Program Interface (API) to provide location-based service for users. Moreover, the data used for the mobile application is fetched from server using web service. Social media is also integrated to the system to provide better experience for the users and for sharing tourism information.