Abhiram Devarapalli (Palau, Bureau of Tourism)
Abhi deployed a new database application that tracks boat and tour operator licenses for the Bureau of Tourism in the Republic of Palau, an island country located in the western Pacific Ocean.
The Bureau of Tourism, responsible for establishing Palau’s National Tourism Master Plan and implementing and enforcing the regulatory frameworks of the tourism industry, wanted to simplify the annual process for granting licenses to the country’s tour boat operators. The existing process was awkward, requiring paper forms which were then entered into a spreadsheet. The CMU student created an online database with data entry forms, migrated the existing excel data to the database, generated commonly used reports and trained bureau compliance specialists on how to use the new system. This resulted in a simpler process for the boat operators to apply each year and made it easier for the compliance team to make updates.