Modelling the spatial-temporal movement of tourists

Tourism is one of the most rapidly developing industries in the world. The study of spatio-temporal movement models of tourists are undertaken in variety of disciplines such as tourism, geography, mathematics, economics and artificial intelligence. Knowledge from these different fields has been difficult to integrate because tourist movement research has been conducted at different spatial and temporal scales. This thesis establishes a methodology for modelling the spatial-temporal movement of tourists and defines the spatial-temporal movement of tourists at both the macro and micro level. At the macro level, the sequence of tourist movements is modelled and the trend for tourist movements is predicted based on Markov Chain theory (MC). Log-linear models are then adopted to test the significance of the movement patterns of tourists. Tourism market segmentation based on the significant movement patterns of tourists is implemented using the EM (Expectation-Maximisation) algorithm. At the micro level, this thesis investigates the wayfinding decision-making processes of tourists. Four wayfinding models are developed and the relationships between the roles of landmarks and wayfinding decision-making are also discussed for each type of the wayfinding processes. The transition of a tourist movement between the macro and micro levels was examined based on the spatio-temporal zooming theory. A case study of Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia is undertaken to implement and evaluate the tourist movement models established in this thesis. Two surveys were conducted on Phillip Island to collect the macro and micro level movement data of tourists. As results show particular groups of tourists travelling with the same movement patterns have unique characteristics such as age and travel behaviours such as mode of transport. Effective tour packages can be designed based on significant movement patterns and the corresponding target markets. Tourists with various age groups, residency, gender and different levels of familiarity with physical environment have different wayfinding behaviours. The results of this study have been applied to tourism management on Phillip Island and the novel methods developed in this thesis have proved to be useful in improving park facilities and services provided to tourists, in designing tour packages for tourism market promotion and in understanding tourist wayfinding behaviours

Smartphoned Tourists in the Phygital Tourist Experience

The present thesis explores how the tourist experience is re-articulated through the mediation of smartphones. I adopt the postphenomenological theory of mediation as the overarching ontological position, placing the role of technologies on an ontological level, as mediators of perception and experience. The new tourist that emerges from smartphone mediation is the smartphoned tourist, that is a tourist whose experience is shaped by the availability and use of this technology.The thesis focuses on two aspects: first, how smartphones mediate tourist information behaviour. It is argued that information behaviour is a more comprehensive term than information search behaviour because it includes a passive component of behaviour, where information is not only actively searched, but also encountered serendipitously. The concept of planned serendipity is proposed to indicate how smartphone-mediated information behaviour is complex and cannot be reduced to a dichotomy of serendipity and planning. Second, how smartphones mediate tourists’ experiences of phygital worlds. The term phygital is adopted to indicate how the technologically mediated tourist experience is neither physical nor digital, but both. These questions are answered through conceptual and empirical work in four papers.Paper I explores how smartphones mediate tourists’ relationships with traditional information sources, in particular the guidebook. The study applies the theory of consumer value to understand how the guidebook is not only used for information purposes, but is also valued as an object of consumption. The different types of value attributed to the guidebook are preferential and relative to the smartphone.In Paper II, after a reflection on the technological mediation of the experience on-site, a qualitative methodology is presented, which combines the experience sampling method with semi-structured interviews.Paper III, offers a critical review of tourist information search behaviour literature and adopts the concept of planned serendipity to investigate how planning and spontaneity are simultaneously reduced and amplified through smartphone mediation.Paper IV focuses on the question of how tourists’ time-space behaviour is mediated by the smartphone, and how such mediation makes the experience phygital. The paper offers a new conceptualization of time geography, adapted to the phygital tourist experience

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationRecent advancements in mobile devices - such as Global Positioning System (GPS), cellular phones, car navigation system, and radio-frequency identification (RFID) - have greatly influenced the nature and volume of data about individual-based movement in space and time. Due to the prevalence of mobile devices, vast amounts of mobile objects data are being produced and stored in databases, overwhelming the capacity of traditional spatial analytical methods. There is a growing need for discovering unexpected patterns, trends, and relationships that are hidden in the massive mobile objects data. Geographic visualization (GVis) and knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) are two major research fields that are associated with knowledge discovery and construction. Their major research challenges are the integration of GVis and KDD, enhancing the ability to handle large volume mobile objects data, and high interactivity between the computer and users of GVis and KDD tools. This dissertation proposes a visualization toolkit to enable highly interactive visual data exploration for mobile objects datasets. Vector algebraic representation and online analytical processing (OLAP) are utilized for managing and querying the mobile object data to accomplish high interactivity of the visualization tool. In addition, reconstructing trajectories at user-defined levels of temporal granularity with time aggregation methods allows exploration of the individual objects at different levels of movement generality. At a given level of generality, individual paths can be combined into synthetic summary paths based on three similarity measures, namely, locational similarity, directional similarity, and geometric similarity functions. A visualization toolkit based on the space-time cube concept exploits these functionalities to create a user-interactive environment for exploring mobile objects data. Furthermore, the characteristics of visualized trajectories are exported to be utilized for data mining, which leads to the integration of GVis and KDD. Case studies using three movement datasets (personal travel data survey in Lexington, Kentucky, wild chicken movement data in Thailand, and self-tracking data in Utah) demonstrate the potential of the system to extract meaningful patterns from the otherwise difficult to comprehend collections of space-time trajectories

Exploring urban visitors' mobilities. A multi-method approach

Aquesta tesi doctoral sorgeix de la necessitat d’aprofundir en el coneixement de les mobilitats dels visitants, entendre les decisions que configuren el seu comportament espacio-temporal i identificar i explorar els efectes que les seves mobilitats tenen sobre les destinacions urbanes. La tesi es desenvolupa entorn a quatre objectius específics que s’emmarquen en l’àmbit de recerca relacionat amb el seguiment de l’activitat dels visitants en destinacions turístiques urbanes. Cadascun d’aquests objectius es desenvolupa en cadascun dels articles científics que conformen aquesta tesi doctoral, publicats tots ells en revistes de revisió per parells. El primer article es proposa com a objectiu identificar els factors, relacionats amb el perfil socioeconòmic dels turistes i amb les característiques de la seva estada, que determinen la selecció d’opcions de transport i mobilitat sostenible per moure’s per la destinació urbana. El segon article pretén analitzar i comprendre com afecta el comportament espacio-temporal dels turistes en els seus patrons de consum econòmic i, per tant, en la generació d’ingressos per a l’economia local. El tercer article es proposa analitzar la influència de l’espai urbà sobre la forma en què els visitants es desplacen per la destinació. I finalment, el quart article té per objectiu reconstruir trajectòries i/o fluxos espacio-temporals a partir de dades geolocalitzades de les xarxes socials per tal de detectar patrons de mobilitat dels visitants de destinacions urbanes. Les fonts de dades i els mètodes utilitzats per complir amb els objectius de partida són diverses. En aquest sentit, la tesi aporta també una àmplia radiografia dels pros i les contres de les diferents fonts de dades disponibles per a l’anàlisi de les mobilitats dels visitants en destinacions turístiques.Esta tesis doctoral surge de la necesidad de profundizar en el conocimiento de las movilidades de los visitantes,entender las decisiones que configuran su comportamiento espaciotemporal e identificar y explorar los efectos que sus movilidades tienen sobre los destinos urbanos. La tesis se desarrolla en torno a cuatro objetivos específicos que se enmarcan en el ámbito de investigación de seguimiento de visitantes, y que se desarrollan en cada uno de los artículos científicos, publicados todos ellos en revistas de revisión por pares, que conforman esta tesis. El primer artículo se propone como objetivo identificar los factores, relacionados con el perfil socioeconómicos de los turistas y con las características de su estancia, que determinan la selección de opciones de transporte y movilidad sostenible para moverse por el destino urbano. El segundo artículo pretende analizar y comprender cómo afecta el comportamiento espaciotemporal de los turistas en sus patrones de consumo económico y, por tanto, en la generación de ingresos para la economía local. El tercer artículo se propone analizar la influencia del espacio urbano sobre la forma en que los visitantes se desplazan por el destino. Y finalmente, el cuarto artículo tiene por objetivo reconstruir trayectorias y / o flujos espaciotemporales a partir de datos geolocalizados de las redes sociales para detectar patrones de movilidad de los visitantes de destinos urbanos. Las fuentes de datos y los métodos utilizados para cumplir con los objetivos de partida son diversos. En este sentido, la tesis aporta también una amplia radiografía de los pros y contras de las diferentes fuentes de datos disponibles para el análisis de las movilidades de los visitantes en destinos turísticos.This dissertation arises from the need to deepen the knowledge of the mobility of visitors, understand the decisions that shape their spatiotemporal behaviour and identify and explore the effects that their mobility has on urban destinations. The thesis is developed around four specific objectives that fall within the scope of visitor tracking research, and that are developed in each of the scientific articles, all of them published in peer-reviewed journals, that make up this thesis. The first article aims to identify the factors, related to the socioeconomic profile of tourists and the characteristics of their stay, that determine the selection of sustainable transport and mobility options to move within the urban destination. The second article aims to analyse and understand how the visitors’ spatiotemporal behaviour affects their patterns of economic consumption and, therefore, the generation of income for the local economy. The third article aims to analyse the influence of the built environment on the visitors’ mobilities at destination. And finally, the fourth article aims to reconstruct trajectories and / or spatiotemporal flows from geolocated data obtained from social networks in order to detect visitors’ mobility patterns at urban destinations. The data sources and methods used to meet the objectives are multiple. In this sense, the thesis also provides an extensive x-ray of the pros and cons of the different data sources available for the analysis of visitors’ mobilities in tourist destinations

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

都市の持続可能性に向けた旅行行動と知的移動データ統合に関する包括的研究

過去数十年にわたり世界中で都市の持続可能性がトレンドとなり研究対象となっている．人々は，非効率な天然資源の消費や社会経済活動による環境破壊など，地球環境に有害な活動を行い，これには都市計画や交通計画を始め，多くの分野が密接に関係している．現在では，これらを解決する新技術の開発や応用が広範囲な研究分野で日々取り組まれている．本研究では観光に関する問題を，交通と都市の研究の観点からさまざまなビックデータを使用し，持続可能な都市開発を目標とした具体的な解決策を示した．本研究では都市や地域の持続可能性に資するデータの活用方法として，Wi-Fiパケットセンサーを使用した旅行者にとって魅力的な観光目的地マネジメントに関する研究，およびETCプローブデータを使用した旅行時間の信頼性の観測における天候の影響に関する分析を組み合わせて示した．本論文では，都市の移動性の認知に対して以下に示す3つの研究から，特徴的な結果と有効な分析手法を確立した．1）Wi-Fiパッケージセンシング調査を使用した，広域観光エリアでの周遊パターンのマイニングベースの関連法則の調査，2）Wi-Fi追跡データでの大規模な観光地の持続可能な開発に向けた魅力的な目的地の抽出，3）ETC2.0プローブデータを使用して，様々な道路タイプを考慮した旅行の信頼性に対する降雪の影響の評価．以上の研究から，複数視点の考察を積み重ね，包括的な評価と提案を行い，いくつかの重要な結果が得られた．この論文の貢献は，より良い社会への問題解決への糸口となり，今後の政策立案者にとって有意義な内容となるだろう．According to sustainability, the trend is spreading out around the world for past decades. There are many area subjects involved, such as city planning, transportation planning, and so on, because people realized human activities harmful to the environment by consuming natural resources with less efficiency process or damage environment by social and economic movements. Currently, emerging technologies considered for the proactive procedure in extensive study areas regarding new technology application and knowledge based. In term of transport and urban study, including tourism concerns, we used intelligent data from deferent sources to be demonstrating the possible solutions which involve sustainable urban development concept. In this study, as a method of utilizing data that contributes to the sustainability of cities and regions, consideration of attractive destination management for tourists by using wireless probe data, and the weather impact on travel time reliability observation by using electronic toll collection probe data, it represented as combination experiments throughout comprehensive study. This dissertation addressed three contribution studies to the composed acknowledgment of urban mobility, and it obtained the intelligent data and specific method of research-based. It consists of; 1) an association rule mining-based exploration of travel patterns in wide tourism areas using a Wi-Fi package sensing survey, 2) Attractive destinations mining towards massive tourism area sustainable development on Wi-Fi tracking data, and 3) Assessment of the impact of snowfall on travel reliability considering different road types using ETC2.0 probe data. Hence, a stack of varying viewpoints researches provided a comprehensive review and suggestion throughout significant results. The contribution of this dissertation could be an advantage substance for strategy and policies planner to recognize alternative solutions leading to a better society.室蘭工業大学 (Muroran Institute of Technology)博士（工学

Social media and GIScience: Collection, analysis, and visualization of user-generated spatial data

Over the last decade, social media platforms have eclipsed the height of popular culture and communication technology, which, in combination with widespread access to GIS-enabled hardware (i.e. mobile phones), has resulted in the continuous creation of massive amounts of user-generated spatial data. This thesis explores how social media data have been utilized in GIS research and provides a commentary on the impacts of this next iteration of technological change with respect to GIScience. First, the roots of GIS technology are traced to set the stage for the examination of social media as a technological catalyst for change in GIScience. Next, a scoping review is conducted to gather and synthesize a summary of methods used to collect, analyze, and visualize this data. Finally, a case study exploring the spatio-temporality of crowdfunding behaviours in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic is presented to demonstrate the utility of social media data in spatial research