Tracing Tourists by Their Digital Footprints

Abstract

Traditional tourism data collection includes surveys, interviews and focus groups. However, these methods are both expensive and time consuming. Moreover, there is a lag between the time of data collection and the receipt of that data for analysis. Today, almost all individuals leave digital footprints on the Internet, which can also be used for tourism research. One type of digital footprint is the photos uploaded on websites such as Flickr. The aim of this study is to determine whether the digital footprints in Flickr provide a useful indicator for tourism demand. Photos tagged with "Austria" between 2007 and 2011 were collected using Flickr API. Residents were distinguished from tourists using the data, and spatial analyses were conducted of the tourist-generated data. The results indicate that geotagged photos in Austria are more representative of actual tourist numbers at the city level than at the regional level.

Science Mapping of Tourist Mobility 1980–2019. Technological Advancements in the Collection of the Data for Tourist Traceability

“…In option G "Movement of tourist based on digital records" is mainly developed in References [166,198,241]. In this alternative, the concept of the fingerprint is used as the trace of such a person, before, during and after his visit to a city.…”

The 2016 St. Gallen Consensus on Advances in Destination Management

“…Notwithstanding its potential, discussions in the consensus session revealed a more nuanced stance toward the use of big data, including mobile phone data (Shoval & Isaacson, 2007), peer-to-peer communication initiated by visitors about tourist experience (e.g., tweets) (Sevin, 2013), and geolocation tracking based on visitor cards, and other volunteered geographic information embedded in holiday snapshots, etc. (Önder, Koerbitz, & Hubmann-Haidvogel, 2014). In particular, conference attendees raised five concerns.…”

Tourist Activity Analysis by Leveraging Mobile Social Media Data

“…The tourist's 20 check-ins provided us with a comprehensive understanding of the tourist's activities and behaviors in Hong Kong, such as the visited places, dining places, activities, and transportation uses. Prior works using GPS technology provided the spatial (latitude/longitude) and temporal information (date and time) (Castro-Nuno et al 2013;Onder et al 2014;Vu et al 2015) but not the detailed information on the visited venues, venue types, and activities. The venue information and the GPS coordinates are available; thus, check-in information can be integrated into a geographical information system for visual analysis.…”