Sustainable Cultural Tourism in Urban Destinations: Does Space Matter?

Policy makers and tourism developers must understand visitors' mobility behavior and how they consume space and tourism resources in order to set up sustainable cultural tourism destinations. With this in mind, it should also be pointed out that the mobility patterns of tourists in urban destinations are mainly located in the city center (spatial centrality), the analysis of which enables us to define "how central" the resources (museums, monuments, etc.) are and what the interactions between them are. Comprehending which factors influence visitors' urban mobility behavior is key to understanding tourists' consumption of space and their connections with the tourism assets of the city. Furthermore, when tourists visit a destination, they make a mental representation of the destination, constructing a mental map of it. Thus, tourists consume not only spaces but also the image of a city/destination. Moreover, the latter influences the former. The quality of surrounding architecture and urbanism plays a crucial role in enhancing the experiential value of a destination and influencing space consumption preferences. Clearly, visitors are more likely to use/consume environments that are easily navigated and mentally legible. In order to explore these patterns, a real experiment was performed based on visitor behavior in the city of Bilbao. In addition, the central places of Bilbao were determined and an analysis of the spatial interaction between cultural sites was performed, making use of a new methodology based on GPS technologies, network analysis, and surveys. This methodology is the main contribution of this work. The results suggest that (1) easy mobility (walkability, accessibility, different transport modes) of the visited space facilitates the tourist experience; (2) simple and eligible mental maps of the city that are easily perceived by visitors facilitate the rapid consumption of the tourist destination; and (3) the centrality of the tourism resources affects the mobility of visitors and the consumption of the destination. Thus, by understanding how tourist mobility works in a destination and analyzing tourism resources' centrality, policy makers may better tailor sustainable strategies for cultural tourism destinations.The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO 2015 CREA-NETWORK CSO2015-65265-C4-3-R). The Art4pax Foundation (Guernica) and the Basque Government (SAIOTEK) provided support for this project. We are grateful to BASQUETOUR (Basque Agency of Tourism), CICtourGUNE and to Silke Haarich (Germany) who kindly read an early draft of the article. They are not responsible for our interpretations

Alternative methodological approaches in understanding tourist spatial behavior in urban heritage destination

The complexities of cities as spaces lead to the difficulties in understanding the spatial behavior of tourists within cities. Mapping and modelling of tourists’ spatial activity is viewed by many researchers as an under researched field in which much progress is still needed. The advancement of tracking technologies development offers an opportunity to further and expand the nature of understanding the tourist particularly in urban destination. Understanding of this phenomenon may also allow planners and tourism managers to make decisions and to address tourism development in a well-versed manner. The rapid advancement and availability of small, cheap and reliable tracking devices drawing on GPS technology is assisting researchers to develop new methods of spatial research. From this point of view, tourism is mainly a geographic activity. Most of the information needed in tourism planning is spatial, indicating where and how extensive the tourism resources are, how intensively the resources are used and so on. Basically, different methods can be employed to utilize the collected spatial data. However, the most basic method is to present the collected information on a map. The tracks collected from tourists using advanced tracking technologies can be further used to calculate many different variables that describe the spatial activity of tourist particularly in urban destination. This paper aims to capture the new methodological approaches which can help to explain different modes of behavior in urban destination versus traditional approaches. In this context, advanced tracking technologies were seen as the best tool in order to give both actual and detailed insight into people’s individual and collective travel behavior

A perspective on traditional verses modern technologies in tracking the tourists

Historic city offers tourists a mixture of cultural heritage and leisure activities in a unique setting. However, there are limited research addressing the movement and behavior of tourists in tourism destination that leads the understanding of urban function towards "heterogeneity" and "multi functionality". In order to maintain and ensuring long-term success as an attractive destination for tourists, tourist’s movement and behavior is most likely an important element to be fully understood by planners and decision maker. Hence, the method of tracking tourist is one of the important aspects in providing better picture, especially in the context of obtaining accurate data on the tourist’s move. The traditional methods used to collect data on spatial and temporal activities are limited in accuracy and validity (Shoval et al. 2007). However, advance in technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS) can provide an opportunity to give more accurate data on tracking tourists. Hence, the studies were designed to determine the potential worth of the various tracking technologies for research on tourist movement in Melaka historic cities. The discussion in this paper focusing on 6 traditional and 5 modern methods of tracking tourists movement. Each of the tracking methods has their advantages and disadvantages. Accuracy, availability, location of the study area, costs, privacy of travelling, duration of tracking and suitability in tracking daily movement are used as variables to identify which tracking method is the best to track tourists in heritage site. Existing literature indicates that application of GPS in a mobile or smart phone emerges as the best option method for tracking tourists in Melaka heritage site. By comparing methods of tracking tourists, it may assist researcher to choose the best option of method to obtain accurate and precise data about tourist movement. Thus, the study offered a systematic review of several tracking technologies in which potentially able to push the boundaries of tourism studies, as well as improving policy making, planning and management in tourism area

Overseas Tourist Movement Patterns in Beijing: The Impact of the Olympic Games

Tourist movement patterns are essential for tourism planners to make decisions on tourism product development, destination planning and marketing. The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have a great impact on the tourism industry in Beijing, especially on tourism flows and movements. In order to understanding changes of tourist movement patterns during the Games, the paper used content analysis method to analyze 500 trip diaries gathered from 6 different websites from January 2001 to April 2009. The paper also utilized social network analysis software Ucinet 6 and NetDraw to map itineraries and analyze overseas tourist movement patterns in Beijing. As a result, the paper summarized the changes of main tourism attractions and main tourist movement patterns in Beijing during the Olympic periods

Analysis of Lisbon visitors’ internet access behavior: behavior analysis through the identification of clusters

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Driven Marketing, specialization in Marketing IntelligenceThis master's thesis focuses on clustering the internet access behavior of urban visitors in the Lisbon urban area. To promote smart city development, the study aims to provide insights into visitors' behaviors while accessing the internet in Lisbon, enabling improved decision-making processes for city management, and enhancing the overall online and offline experience for visitors. The over-tourism phenomenon has put a strain on infrastructure, public transportation, and cultural heritage sites. Therefore, innovative methods are needed for effective smart city management, particularly in urban mobility. The increasing availability of Wi-Fi networks during travel has generated valuable data that can be used to develop groundbreaking approaches to understanding visitors’ behaviors and mobility patterns in urban areas. This knowledge enables the analysis and clustering of urban visitors' behavior, contributing to improved decision-making processes in smart city management

A Smartphone-Based System for Outdoor Data Gathering Using a Wireless Beacon Network and GPS Data: From Cyber Spaces to Senseable Spaces

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and mobile devices are deeply influencing all facets of life, directly affecting the way people experience space and time. ICTs are also tools for supporting urban development, and they have also been adopted as equipment for furnishing public spaces. Hence, ICTs have created a new paradigm of hybrid space that can be defined as Senseable Spaces. Even if there are relevant cases where the adoption of ICT has made the use of public open spaces more “smart”, the interrelation and the recognition of added value need to be further developed. This is one of the motivations for the research presented in this paper. The main goal of the work reported here is the deployment of a system composed of three different connected elements (a real-world infrastructure, a data gathering system, and a data processing and analysis platform) for analysis of human behavior in the open space of Cardeto Park, in Ancona, Italy. For this purpose, and because of the complexity of this task, several actions have been carried out: the deployment of a complete real-world infrastructure in Cardeto Park, the implementation of an ad-hoc smartphone application for the gathering of participants’ data, and the development of a data pre-processing and analysis system for dealing with all the gathered data. A detailed description of these three aspects and the way in which they are connected to create a unique system is the main focus of this paper.This work has been supported by the Cost Action TU1306, called CYBERPARKS: Fostering knowledge about the relationship between Information and Communication Technologies and Public Spaces supported by strategies to improve their use and attractiveness, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the ESPHIA project (ref. TIN2014-56042-JIN) and the TARSIUS project (ref. TIN2015-71564-C4-4-R), and the Basque Country Department of Education under the BLUE project (ref. PI-2016-0010). The authors would also like to thank the staff of UbiSive s.r.l. for the support in developing the application

Expanding our understanding of cruise visitors' expenditure at destinations: The role of spatial patterns, onshore visit choice and cruise category

Cruise tourism is an important and growing source of visitors to destinations. To expand our knowledge of this phenomenon, this study incorporates three new drivers into the analysis of the expenditure patterns of cruise passengers at destinations, namely, spatial intra-destination behavior (single node, multiple node, or hinterland), onshore visit choice (independent or guided), and cruise category (standard, premium, luxury, or exclusive). The study uses quantile regression to unearth the intricacies of the proposed relationships and a dataset that combines GPS tracking technologies and traditional surveys. Results suggest that the mobility pattern, onshore visit choice, and time spent at a destination of cruise visitors have significant effects on their expenditures. However, these effects vary along with the level of expenditure, whereas cruise category does not exert a clear effect on expenditure. The implications for destination management organizations are also discussed.Research carried out within the project “Analysis of planning processes applied to smart cities and smart tourism destinations. Balance and methodological proposal for tourist spaces: Smart Tourism Planning” (CSO2017-82592-R) under the Spanish National R&D&I Plan funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness/[UAFPU2016-014]

Backpackers' space–time behavior in an urban destination: the impact of travel information sources

This research aims to identify the information sources used by backpackers before and during the visit to an urban destination and its influence on the movements performed. It uses a questionnaire survey combined with a GPS app to track the movements of backpackers to identify backpackers' spatiotemporal behavior. A bivariate analysis using non-parametric tests was used to examine the relationships between variables. This study concludes that the consulting online information before the visit has a great deal of influence on the spatiotemporal behavior of the backpackers, namely on the linearity and intensity of the visit. If online information sources are very important due to the intense use of information by backpackers, word of mouth from other travelers should not be disregarded as an important information source. This research can contribute to the definition of more informed and differentiating tourism marketing strategy considering the information sources used and its influence on the movements performed during the visit.This work was financially supported by the research unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy (UIDB/04058/2020) + (UIDP/04058/2020), funded by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio