The Smart Planner project continues to make strong progress as the team moves closer to a broader public launch. Following a productive first quarter of 2026, the months of April and May have focused on refining the user experience, advancing artificial intelligence capabilities, strengthening data analytics foundations, and expanding the platform's content ecosystem.

With multiple workstreams progressing in parallel, Smart Planner is steadily evolving into a comprehensive platform designed to support sustainable and meaningful travel experiences while providing valuable insights for destinations, tourism operators, and travellers alike.

Mobile App Development Continues to Deliver Positive Results

Following the release of the first version of the Smart Planner mobile application to a small group of key users earlier this year, the development team dedicated April and May to extensive testing, refinement, and user experience improvements.

A selected group of early adopters continues to actively engage with the project, providing valuable feedback on usability, functionality, navigation, and overall user experience. Their contributions have been instrumental in helping the team identify opportunities for improvement and validate design decisions.

Throughout April and May, several enhancements were implemented based on user feedback. These improvements focused on creating a smoother and more intuitive experience for travellers using the platform. The response from testers has remained highly positive, reinforcing confidence in the platform's direction and highlighting the value Smart Planner can bring to future users.

As development progresses, this collaborative approach between the project team and early users continues to ensure that the platform is built around real traveller needs and expectations.

Data Analytics Workstream Reaches Important Milestone

One of the key strategic initiatives within the Smart Planner project is the Data Analytics Workstream, which aims to establish the foundations for advanced AI-driven insights and predictive capabilities.

The objective of this workstream is to better understand traveller behaviour, visitor preferences, tourism demand patterns, and visitor flow dynamics. To achieve this, the team has been analysing both internal platform signals and external data sources that can be aggregated and transformed into valuable intelligence.

During April, significant progress was made in identifying and evaluating a range of publicly available external datasets that could potentially enrich the Smart Planner platform. These datasets were assessed for relevance, quality, accessibility, and potential value in supporting future predictive models.

To better understand the opportunities presented by this data, the team developed several analytics dashboards and proof-of-concept visualisations. These dashboards enabled the exploration of potential use cases and helped validate assumptions about how external information could enhance decision-making and user experiences.

As a result of this work, the path forward is now much clearer. The team has identified the external data sources that will provide the greatest value to the platform and has established a roadmap for integrating them into the Smart Planner ecosystem.

The next phase of this workstream will focus on automating data pipelines that will continuously collect, transform, and store external data within the Smart Planner platform. This will create the foundation necessary to support future AI models capable of delivering richer insights and more personalised recommendations.

AI Trip Assistant Becomes Available in the Mobile App

Artificial intelligence remains at the heart of Smart Planner's vision, and the past two months have seen considerable progress in the development of the AI Trip Assistant.

The first version of the AI Trip Assistant is now available within the mobile application, providing users with an early glimpse of how AI can support travel planning and destination discovery.

While this initial release represents an important milestone, the team's focus has now shifted toward specialisation. Rather than relying solely on a general-purpose large language model (LLM), Smart Planner is actively developing a specialised ecotourism-focused AI practitioner designed to better understand the unique needs of environmentally conscious travellers.

To support this effort, the project team conducted interviews with both travellers and travel industry professionals, including travel agents. These conversations provided valuable insights into traveller expectations, common planning challenges, sustainability considerations, and the types of information users seek when exploring destinations.

The knowledge gathered through these interviews is now being incorporated into the AI Trip Assistant's knowledge base and fine-tuning process. The goal is to create an AI companion capable of delivering more accurate, relevant, and context-aware guidance while promoting responsible and sustainable travel practices.

As development continues, the AI Trip Assistant will become increasingly specialised, enabling it to provide deeper expertise and more meaningful assistance to travellers throughout their journey.

Building and Curating the Platform's Content Ecosystem

Content remains one of the most important components of the Smart Planner platform.

During the past two months, considerable effort has been invested in researching, assessing, and curating tourism-related content that will support both travellers and the platform's AI capabilities.

The team has been evaluating a broad range of tourism assets, including accommodation providers, tourism operators, restaurants, transport options, activities, attractions, community initiatives, and places of interest. Each listing undergoes a review process to ensure its relevance, quality, and alignment with the platform's objectives.

Alongside content acquisition and evaluation, Smart Planner has also been developing a framework to classify listings according to sustainability and ecotourism-related criteria.

This work is particularly important because it will help travellers make more informed choices while increasing transparency around the environmental and community impact of tourism experiences. The classification framework aims to provide users with clearer information about which options align more closely with responsible and sustainable tourism principles.

By combining curated content with sustainability-focused classification standards, Smart Planner seeks to create a trusted ecosystem where travellers can confidently discover experiences that match their values and preferences.

Designing the AI Trip Itinerary Planner

Another exciting area of progress has been the early design work for the AI Trip Itinerary Planner.

This capability represents one of the project's most ambitious objectives and is expected to become a cornerstone feature of the Smart Planner platform.

The team has begun designing the architecture and decision-making engine that will power itinerary generation. The specialised ecotourism-focused large language model currently being developed for the AI Trip Assistant will serve as the system's central intelligence component.

However, itinerary planning requires more than conversational AI alone. The platform will also incorporate algorithm-driven capabilities designed to consider factors such as traveller preferences, sustainability considerations, logistics, available activities, timing, and destination-specific information.

By combining specialised AI knowledge with structured planning algorithms, Smart Planner aims to generate highly personalised itineraries that balance convenience, meaningful experiences, and sustainable travel practices.

While still in the design phase, this work represents an important step toward delivering one of the platform's most anticipated features.

Looking Ahead

The Smart Planner project continues to progress well across all major workstreams, with each milestone bringing the platform closer to broader market availability.

The successful testing of the mobile application, advancement of AI capabilities, progress in data analytics, expansion of curated content, and early development of itinerary planning functionality collectively demonstrate the momentum behind the project.

Over the coming months, the team will continue refining the platform while preparing for a larger soft launch involving an expanded group of users who have supported the project throughout its development journey.

Subject to ongoing testing and final refinements, Smart Planner is currently targeting a public launch around August 2026.

The team would like to thank all early users, industry participants, travel professionals, and supporters who have contributed feedback and insights throughout the development process. Their involvement continues to play a vital role in shaping a platform designed to transform how travellers discover, plan, and experience sustainable tourism.

Further updates will be shared as the project progresses toward this exciting next chapter.

Interested in learning more about Smart Planner? Get in touch with us today.