Towards Smarter Management of Overtourism in Historic Centres Through Visitor-Flow Monitoring

Historic centres are highly regarded destinations for watching and even participating in diverse and unique forms of cultural expression. Cultural tourism, according to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), is an important and consolidated tourism sector and its strong growth is expected to continue over the coming years. Tourism, the much dreamt of redeemer for historic centres, also represents one of the main threats to heritage conservation: visitors can dynamize an economy, yet the rapid growth of tourism often has negative effects on both built heritage and the lives of local inhabitants. Knowledge of occupancy levels and flows of visiting tourists is key to the efficient management of tourism; the new technologies—the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and geographic information systems (GIS)—when combined in interconnected networks represent a qualitative leap forward, compared to traditional methods of estimating locations and flows. A methodology is described in this paper for the management of tourism flows that is designed to promote sustainable tourism in historic centres through intelligent support mechanisms. As part of the Smart Heritage City (SHCITY) project, a collection system for visitors is developed. Following data collection via monitoring equipment, the analysis of a set of quantitative indicators yields information that can then be used to analyse visitor flows; enabling city managers to make management decisions when the tourism-carrying capacity is exceeded and gives way to overtourism.Funded by the Interreg Sudoe Programme of the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF

The use of a geographic information system to increase outdoor tourism

Purpose: Outdoor tourism is a growing segment that still requires data for planning and management. Aimed to present the potential of the Geographic Information System (GIS) to improve outdoor tourism in the North of Portugal. To achieve this purpose, a case study was conducted on developing a Web-GIS in Northern Portugal. Methodology: Four steps were followed to develop the GIS tool with information about outdoor tourism in the North of Portugal. In the first step, municipalities in the North of Portugal sent information about outdoor activities. In the second step, the data were georeferenced and associated. In the last step, a Web-GIS was developed. Findings: The development of tools is an important source of support for tourism. This study identified that a tool such as the GIS could support a destination's decision-making and promotional processes, besides providing detailed information to the tourist and facilitating travel planning. Practical implications: GIS provides effective planning of outdoor tourism, once this tool allows an effective search of the tourist offer and, from the tourist's perspective, relevant suggestions of visits according to their location are presented, facilitating their experience in the region. Originality: Several studies relate to GIS and tourism, but there is still a gap in specific studies on outdoor activities. So, this study presents the importance of GIS to improve outdoor tourism in the North region of Portugal. Understanding this importance is essential in planning and managing tourism, helping further policymaking and marketing strategies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The use of a geographic information system to increase outdoor tourism

Purpose: Outdoor tourism is a growing segment that still requires data for planning and management. Aimed to present the potential of the Geographic Information System (GIS) to improve outdoor tourism in the North of Portugal. To achieve this purpose, a case study was conducted on developing a Web-GIS in Northern Portugal. Methodology: Four steps were followed to develop the GIS tool with information about outdoor tourism in the North of Portugal. In the first step, municipalities in the North of Portugal sent information about outdoor activities. In the second step, the data were georeferenced and associated. In the last step, a Web-GIS was developed. Findings: The development of tools is an important source of support for tourism. This study identified that a tool such as the GIS could support a destination's decision-making and promotional processes, besides providing detailed information to the tourist and facilitating travel planning. Practical implications: GIS provides effective planning of outdoor tourism, once this tool allows an effective search of the tourist offer and, from the tourist's perspective, relevant suggestions of visits according to their location are presented, facilitating their experience in the region. Originality: Several studies relate to GIS and tourism, but there is still a gap in specific studies on outdoor activities. So, this study presents the importance of GIS to improve outdoor tourism in the North region of Portugal. Understanding this importance is essential in planning and managing tourism, helping further policymaking and marketing strategies.B913-0565-0908 | Elvira VieiraN/

A case study of the methodology implemented to develop the geographic information system of tourism offer in the Alentejo region

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a powerful tool to make an integrated study of the overall spatial expression of tourism resources in the territory, as well as the facilities and the infrastructures required for its development. Tourism policies and strategies are becoming more complex to define due to the diversity of variables and constraints that underlie them. The availability of accurate and update information about tourism offer is thus crucial for the public sector to guide and ground their planning initiatives and for professionals to guide their business management. This paper focuses on the methodological aspects of the project GIS of Tourism Offer in the Alentejo Regional Area, developed in the context of Regional Observatory for Tourism in the Alentejo. Its main purpose is to make an inventory, systematize existing information and gather basic information when missing, about the tourism resources of the Alentejo and represent them in a GIS environment, providing an important tool for decision support of the business sector and tourism planning in the region. The case study method will be used to present how the methodological structure of the project was conceived and implemented to achieve the established goals, considering both the existing scientific studies in this field and the reality of the region itself as far as the regional development of sustainable tourism is concerned

A GIS approach towards estimating tourist's off-road use in a mountainous protected area of Northwest Yunnan, China

To address the environmental impacts of tourism in protected areas, park managers need to understand the spatial distribution of tourist use. Standard monitoring measures (tourist surveys and counting and tracking techniques) are not sufficient to accomplish this task, in particular for off-road travel. This article predicts tourists' spatial use patterns through an alternative approach: park accessibility measurement. Naismith's rule and geographical information system's anisotropic cost analysis are integrated into the modeling process, which results in a more realistic measure of off-road accessibility than that provided by other measures. The method is applied to a mountainous United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in northwest Yunnan Province, China, where there is increasing concern about potential impacts of unregulated tourist use. Based on the assumption that accessibility tends to attract more tourists, a spatial pattern of predicted off-road use by tourists is derived. This pattern provides information that can help park managers develop strategies that are effective for both tourism management and species conservation

Geographic Information System Applications for BeachTourism Area Determination in Bitung City

This research was conducted with the aim to determine the suitability of beach tourism area in Bitung city by using Geographic Information System application. This information is necessary to support the provision of geospatial information the beach, so the tourist management in research into more optimum location. Suitability Analysis Zone (spatial) analysis of the suitability of the area is done by using Geographic Information System (GIS), a computer-based geospatial information system involving Arc GIS software 10.1. Based on analysis of the suitability of the area spatially, shows that, for beach tourism area in the area of research, can be divided into 4 (four) classes, namely: (1) land suitability classes by category S1 (Very appropriate) with an area of 376.76 ha (5.87%); (2) land suitability classes with category S2 (Subject) with an area of 262.97 ha (4:10%) (3) land suitability classes with category S3 (In accordance marginal) with an area of 640.48 ha (9.99%) and (4) land suitability classes categories N (Not available) with an area of 5133.79 ha (80.04%

Propuesta de Diseño de Rutas Turístico-Culturales mediante el Empleo de SIG: Un Caso Aplicado

Cultural tourism routes and itineraries are tourism promotion tools that have under-gone a remarkable development in recent years, thanks to their ability to enhance the value of cultural heritage. In this sense, national and international organizations as well as private initiatives have designed tourist routes that cover a wide range of topics, while cultural itineraries have been recognized at the institutional level by organizations such as ICOMOS or the Council of Europe. The main objective of this article is to offer a proposal for the design of cultural tourist routes through the use of a geographic information system. To achieve this goal, we start from a brief theoretical framework in which the tourist use of geographic information systems and the conceptualization of tourist routes and their differences with itineraries are analyzed. Subsequently, the methodology used consists of two distinct phases. Initially, a quantitative study is carried out in which data on the late medieval heritage are collected and subsequently, through the use of a GIS, an index of tourist potentiality is carried out and the creation of a tourist route in the province of Cadiz (Spain). In this way the results obtained justify the route designed and the choice of municipalities, based on their greater availability of tourism resources (accessibility, hospitality etc.) and cultural (historical assets

Towards an ecological network for the Carpathians

The Carpathian Biodiversity Information System (CBIS) and the proposal for an ecological network for the eastern part of the Carpathians are the two main outcomes of the project funded by the BBI Matra program of the Dutch government. This brochure presents information on how the CBIS was designed, and how the data stored can be retrieved and used. It also clarifies how the CBIS data were used to design the ecological network and, last but not least, it offers recommendations for the use of the proposed ecological network in supporting sustainable developmentin the Carpathians. Due to funding restrictions, the project focused on three east Carpathian countries: Romania, Serbia and Ukraine, which together host the largest area of the Carpathians (Fig. 2). Geographically, the Eastern Carpathians also include parts of the Carpathians located in Poland and Slovakia. Data collection in the Western Carpathians (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary) will be completed by 2010 and is funded by a parallel project

Recreation, tourism and nature in a changing world : proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 2010

Proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 201