Chat assistant – what the Bantayan Guide can do.

The chat is a helper for quick questions while you plan or travel. It is an AI, it says so, and it only uses this website.

What you can ask

• Getting here: the way from Cebu airport or Cebu City to the island, step by step with times and fares.
• Ferries: the next and the last trip between Hagnaya and Santa Fe, both ways, from the timetable on this site (Manila time).
• Places: beaches, sights and towns – what they are, where they are, how to get there.
• Prices and money: fares, fees, a daily budget, ATMs and cash, as our price and money pages give them.
• Weather and safety: what our weather and safety pages say – best months, what to do in a typhoon, emergency numbers.
• The page you are on: the chat knows which page you have open. Ask it to sum up the page or to explain one part of it.

Your language

Write in your own language – for example English, Tagalog, Cebuano, 한국어, 中文, 日本語, Deutsch or Español. The chat normally answers in the language you write in; a few short automatic messages (for example when it cannot help) are in English. Place names, prices, times and links stay exactly as on the site.

What the answers show

Answers normally start with a short answer and the key numbers. Then they can add small cards:

Ferry times, page cards and place cards come straight from the site data, not from the AI. Links in the answer text only go to pages of bantayan.org; any other link is removed. The “Directions” button on a place card opens Google Maps.

What it does not do

• No bookings, no payments: it cannot book, reserve or pay for anything, and it cannot contact a resort, a ferry company or anyone else. bantayan.org sells nothing.
• Only Bantayan: recipes, homework, other places, politics, medical or legal advice – it says politely that it can only help with Bantayan Island and this guide.
• No outside knowledge: it does not use what an AI may know from elsewhere. If the site has nothing on your question, it says so and points you to the closest page or the contact form.
• No personal data, please: never type card numbers, passport numbers or bank details. The chat never asks for them, and an answer that would show a card number is blocked.

Honest limits

• It can be wrong: it is an AI. Schedules and prices change – check before you travel, especially the last ferry.
• No live data: the chat cannot see today’s weather, the tide or a typhoon signal right now. Use the live tiles on the home page and the official PAGASA warnings for that.
• Sources can disagree: when our pages give two values (for example for a late ferry), the chat tells you both.
• Not checked on site yet: most pages are not yet checked on the island by our local guide; the chat answers from them anyway. Each page shows how far it has been checked.

Memory in a chat

• Within one chat: it remembers what you said earlier – your first name, travel dates, your group – so a follow-up like “and for a senior?” works.
• Across pages: the chat stays open with your conversation when you go to another page in the same tab.
• Coming back later: your browser keeps a signed chat ID, so you can continue the chat on a later visit. The ID works for 30 days, but stays in your browser until you tap “New chat” or clear this site’s data.
• New chat: the “New chat” button at the top of the chat window clears the conversation from your browser and ends it.
• Long chats: one chat holds up to 30 questions. In a long chat, older messages are condensed into a short summary of limited size, so early details can get lost.

Where its knowledge comes from

• Only this site: our pages, news, the fact register (prices, times, fees – each with source and date), the ferry timetable, events, places and the directory of places (name, type, town, barangay, listing status and a map link – no phone numbers, no booking links).
• Updated by itself: each time the site is rebuilt, the chat’s knowledge is rebuilt from the pages. Nobody keeps a separate list, so the chat knows what the pages say.
• Fact-checked pages: the pages are written by an AI and checked by a second AI before they go online – see how we check. The answers are written by Claude, an AI model by Anthropic.
• Team check: we read the questions and answers in our private team chat to find wrong answers and missing topics.

Privacy in short

• What is sent: your question, the page you are on, your recent messages in this chat and the saved chat notes (details you told the assistant, such as your first name or travel dates, plus a short summary of earlier messages) go through OpenRouter to Anthropic, which writes the answer.
• What is kept: chats are saved on our own Cloudflare storage, without your IP address. Each message is kept for 90 days from when it was sent; the chat record itself is kept for 90 days after your last message. Expired records are removed by the next automatic clean-up.
• Delete it: ask us through the contact form.

All details: Privacy – chat assistant.

Who built the chat

Note – made by SolvraONE: The Bantayan Guide chat is built and run by SolvraONE, the small AI company behind bantayan.org. It works the way SolvraONE’s customer-service AI does: it looks things up with tools instead of guessing, answers step by step and remembers the conversation. That AI answers over 80% of customer chats on its own at a leading mobility provider in the DACH region (case study). This is a note about who is behind the chat, not a paid ad.

FAQ