Sri Lanka Tourist Map — Web Project

Project Overview

Sri Lanka Tourist Map was developed as a comprehensive digital travel-planning platform combining tourism information with a fully customised interactive mapping system.

Rather than functioning as a basic directory, the application enabled users to select the places they wished to visit and display all selected locations together on an interactive map. Registered visitors could save attractions and hotels under a personal tour, assign suitable travel dates, and automatically create a structured tour itinerary based on their chosen destinations.

The platform also helped travellers identify attractions and essential facilities near their current accommodation. From a selected hotel or staying location, users could explore nearby places of interest and view the recommended travel route directly on the map.

Interactive Tour Planner

The custom tour-planning system allowed registered users to:

Create and name personal tours.
Select multiple tourist attractions.
Add hotels to a planned journey.
Save preferred places.
Assign destinations to suitable travel dates.
Display all selected locations on one map.
Automatically generate a tour itinerary.
Review the journey before travelling.
Estimate or calculate the tour cost.
Modify the itinerary by adding or removing locations.

The archived platform instructed users to create a tour before adding places or hotels, confirming that saved destinations were organised within individual user-created travel plans.

Google Maps API Integration

The website used a fully customised Google Maps API application rather than a standard embedded map.

Custom map functions included:

Category-specific map markers.
Tourist attraction markers.
Hotel markers.
Airport and transport markers.
National park markers.
Essential service markers.
Multiple-location display.
Location-based filtering.
Route presentation.
Nearby-place discovery.
User-selected tour mapping.
Map and satellite viewing options.

The large interactive map enabled travellers to understand the geographical relationship between selected destinations and plan a more practical route across Sri Lanka.

Tourist Attraction Directory

The website featured an extensive directory of Sri Lankan attractions. The interface shown in the 2013 version listed 251 tourist attractions and presented them through both visual cards and map markers.

Featured attractions visible in the interface included:

Ravana Ella Cave
Pahiyangala Cave
Anuradhapura
Polonnaruwa
Temple of the Tooth
Sigiriya Rock Fortress
Dambulla Rock Cave Temple
Galle Dutch Fort

Tourism Categories

Visitors could filter places through categories such as:

Activities
Water Activities
Airports
Beaches
Conference Halls
Elephant Orphanages
Embassies
Gardens and Parks
Golf
Heritage Sites
Mountains
Museums
National Parks
Nightlife
Public Parks

The platform also included practical locations required by travellers, such as:

Banks
Supermarkets
Hotels
Airports
Transport services
Travel agents
Other essential facilities

Hotel Directory

The website maintained a structured hotel database with search and filtering options.

Users could:

Search by hotel name.
Search by city.
Browse by hotel category.
Select a hotel as their staying location.
Discover nearby attractions.
Add hotels to a tour.
View the relationship between hotels and selected destinations on the map.

The archived website listed hotel categories ranging from two-star to five-star accommodation, along with small luxury hotels. It also contained records for properties such as Heritance Kandalama, Cinnamon Grand Colombo, Galle Face Hotel, Hilton Colombo, Mount Lavinia Hotel, The Kingsbury, Taj Samudra, and several others.

Nearby Places and Route Discovery

A particularly useful feature allowed users to select their hotel or current staying location and discover important nearby destinations.

The system could present:

Nearby tourist attractions.
Essential facilities.
Hotels and accommodation.
Banks and supermarkets.
Relevant travel services.
The route from the selected hotel to each destination.

This feature helped visitors plan day trips and understand what was available around their accommodation without manually searching across several websites.

User Accounts

The platform included a complete user registration and login system.

Registration required information such as:

Name
Email address
Username
Password
Security verification
Acceptance of terms and conditions

Registered users could create tours and save places or hotels to their personalised travel plans.

Design & Structure

The website adopted a colourful tourism-focused design built around the interactive map.

Its interface combined:

Blue sky and cloud backgrounds.
Green, blue, yellow, and orange category markers.
Attraction photographs.
Hotel and tourism advertising.
A large central Google map.
Scrollable attraction and category panels.
Tour-planning controls.
Search and filter tools.

The three-column layout placed tourist attractions on the left, the interactive map and planning tools in the centre, and category filters on the right. This structure allowed users to browse, select, and map destinations without leaving the main planning screen.

Key Features

Dynamic PHP/MySQL tourism database.
Fully customised Google Maps API.
User registration and login.
Personal tour creation.
Saved attraction and hotel lists.
Automatic itinerary generation.
Date-based tour planning.
Interactive route presentation.
Nearby-attraction discovery.
Hotel directory.
Tourist attraction directory.
Essential services database.
City and category filters.
Travel-agent listings.
Tour-cost calculation facility.
Map and satellite views.
Advertising management.
Custom-built tourism management system.

Technical Highlights

PHP/MySQL database-driven architecture.
Custom-built tourism content management system.
Google Maps API customisation.
Dynamic map-marker generation.
Category-based marker icons.
User-specific saved-tour records.
Multiple destination plotting.
Route and proximity calculations.
Automated itinerary logic.
Hotel and attraction relationship management.
Dynamic location filtering.
Secure registration and authentication.
AJAX-powered user interactions.
Search and database filtering.
Integrated advertising positions.
Cross-browser compatibility.

Significance

Sri Lanka Tourist Map was an innovative tourism technology project for its time. Developed in 2013, it combined a detailed tourism directory, user accounts, interactive mapping, route discovery, and automated itinerary creation within a single application.

Its most distinctive capability was allowing travellers to choose preferred attractions and hotels, save them as part of a personal tour, and view all selected destinations together on a customised Google map. The system could then use these saved locations and assigned dates to help generate an organised travel itinerary automatically.

The platform addressed several practical needs faced by tourists. It helped visitors understand where attractions were located, what facilities were available nearby, how to travel from their hotel to selected destinations, and how several locations could be combined into a realistic journey. The inclusion of banks, supermarkets, airports, travel agents, and other essential services made it more useful than a conventional attraction directory.

Designed and developed by Isura Wickramarachchi, the project demonstrated his ability to combine complex PHP/MySQL database development with advanced third-party API customisation. It stands as an early example of an intelligent, location-based Sri Lankan tourism application developed before interactive trip-planning systems became common across modern travel platforms.

Isura Wickramarachchi is a Sri Lankan author, historical researcher, digital heritage innovator, and information technology professional with more than 25 years of experience in software development, web technologies, and digital publishing. His work is dedicated to preserving Sri Lanka's history through modern technology, making historical knowledge more accessible and engaging for future generations.

He is the author of Mahawansa Pradeepikawa, a groundbreaking 650-page, full-colour historical publication that presents the genealogies, portraits, and histories of nearly 200 Sri Lankan kings. The book is the result of almost ten years of research based on more than 300 historical sources and includes over 200 reconstructed royal portraits, more than 180 royal family trees, and an innovative QR code system that links readers to additional online historical content.

The significance of Mahawansa Pradeepikawa has received international recognition through its acceptance into the collections of renowned institutions, including the British Library, Harvard Library, and the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, demonstrating its value as a modern contribution to the preservation and study of Sri Lankan history.

In addition to his work as an author, Isura has made significant contributions to Sri Lanka's digital landscape as the Founder and Managing Director of isandi CREATIONS. Over the course of his career, he has designed and developed more than 400 websites and web-based applications for clients in Sri Lanka and overseas, specializing in PHP application development, database systems, user experience design, and large-scale information management solutions.

Among his most notable technological achievements is the development of the Sri Lanka Tourist Database Project, one of the country's earliest comprehensive digital tourism information systems. The project brought together thousands of tourist attractions, hotels, restaurants, banks, supermarkets, hospitals, transport services, and other visitor facilities into a single interactive platform. It featured a customized Google Maps integration that allowed users to save favourite destinations, automatically generate personalized travel itineraries, and discover nearby services based on their location. At a time when interactive tourism platforms were still emerging, the project demonstrated how geographic information systems and web technologies could be used to enhance travel planning and promote Sri Lanka's tourism industry.

He is also the creator of several long-term digital knowledge platforms, including films.lk, Sri Lanka's comprehensive Sinhala cinema database, mahawansaya.com, and sinhalasindu.lk, combining historical research, digital archiving, and modern web technologies into accessible online resources.

Beyond publishing and software development, Isura has led numerous educational and community service initiatives focused on knowledge sharing, digital literacy, and heritage preservation. His work reflects a vision of using technology not only to solve practical problems but also to preserve culture, inspire future generations, and strengthen national identity through education and innovation.