trustzhou1515/Nyika-AI-Tourism-Platform

Nyika AI — a Zimbabwe-first AI tourism assistant that turns a traveller's imagined trip into matched destinations, a real budget, an itinerary and a map. Built for AI4I Challenge 2026, Track 3: Development. # Nyika AI Tourism Platform Nyika AI is an AI-assisted Zimbabwe tourism discovery, planning and budgeting MVP. It helps travellers describe the kind of trip they imagine, matches that intent to Zimbabwean destinations, estimates transparent budgets, shows places on a map, and prepares safer travel guidance. Live project link: explorezw.co.zw ## Why This Product Exists Tourists, schools, families and local travellers often want to explore Zimbabwe but do not know where to go, what activities are available, what to budget, what to wear, or how to plan transport and accommodation. Nyika AI turns scattered tourism information into one guided experience that supports discovery, budgeting, safety and future bookings. ## Justified AI Use Nyika AI does not use AI as a decorative feature. AI-style intelligence is used only where user language is vague, emotional or mixed: for example, “I want waterfalls, wildlife and a quiet place for photos.” This requires intent understanding, synonym handling, typo tolerance, activity matching, safety interpretation and recommendation ranking. Budget totals, group estimates, per-person calculations and itinerary cost breakdowns are handled by transparent deterministic logic and destination cost profiles. This avoids using AI where simple arithmetic or database retrieval is more appropriate. The system is designed to be explainable to evaluators, users and tourism partners. ## Current MVP Features - Natural-language destination matching through Nyika AI Discover. - Plan AI for one-destination and across-Zimbabwe trip prompts. - Budget estimation by destination, days, group size and travel style. - Confirmation flow before budget generation. - Visual discovery cards for destinations and activities. - Interactive Zimbabwe tourism map with destination pins and View More actions. - Private memories page with example memories and share-link behaviour. - Care guidance: safety notes, packing suggestions and clothing categories. - …