Harder, Henrik

Nielsen, Niels Chr.

Stilling-Blichfeldt, Bodil

Tradisauskas, Nerius

English

Nielsen, Niels Christian

Blichfeldt, Bodil Stilling

University of Southern Denmark Research Output

Syddansk Universitet
Approaches to GPS-survey of tourist movements within a North Sea island destination
Nielsen, Niels Christian; Harder, Henrik; Tradisauskas, Nerius; Blichfeldt, Bodil Stilling
Published in:
Ereview of Tourism Research
Publication date:
2010
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Final published version
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Citation for pulished version (APA):
Nielsen, N. C., Harder, H., Tradisauskas, N., & Blichfeldt, B. S. (2010). Approaches to GPS-survey of tourist
movements within a North Sea island destination. Ereview of Tourism Research.
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Download date: 15. jan.. 2017
 Approaches to GPS-survey of tourist movements within a 
North Sea island destination 
 
Niels Chr. Nielsena, 
Henrik Harder b,  
Nerius Tradisauskasb and 
Bodil Stilling Blichfeldta 
 
a Center for Tourism, Innovation and Culture 
University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Esbjerg 
{ncn, bsb} @sitkom.sdu.dk 
b
 Department of Architecture and Design  
Aalborg University, Denmark  
hhar@aod.aau.dk, nerius@plan.aau.dk 
Abstract 
Recent developments in information and positioning technologies, converging into portable 
devices offer new opportunities not only for tracking tourist movements, but also for interactive 
description and development of experiences. In this paper, we asses the usefulness of a small 
GPS-GSM device to track tourist movements on a Danish island dominated by summer house 
tourism, supported by a central database and Internet-based visualisation. A number of 
methodological challenges and their possible solutions are discussed. Of equal importance to 
the technical issues, found to work as expected, was the psychological and ethical issues related 
to recruiting participants and make them share their impressions and provide information on 
their in-situ decisions.  
Keywords: GPS; mobility; decision making; summer house; island 
1 Introduction 
Integration of mobile telecommunication, the Global Positioning System (GPS) and 
Geographical Information System (GIS) software offer unprecedented opportunities 
in relation to tourist activities at the destination (Stopher at al 2008). This relates both 
to options for informing tourists about where they are and what to do there, known as 
Location Based Services (LSB) and to options for tracking and monitoring visitors’ 
movements in and around destinations (Shoval and Isaacson 2007). Examples 
pertaining to options to inform tourists about activity-based offers include creation of 
new experience routes, digital versions of existing routes, digital treasure hunts and 
geocaching (Nielsen and Liburd 2008) and place based games, all of which including 
an element of edutainment. One thing these examples have in common is that the 
various initiatives are grounded in destination marketers’ enactment of routes, sights 
and paths that tourists would want to follow and/or experience (Breidenhann and 
Wickens, 2004). Accordingly, the tourist is seen as someone, who is to be led to a 
series of experiences to be immersed in on his/her way along a predefined path or 
route, or to “shop” around for experiences in the touristic landscape. The challenge, to 
 be addressed here is how methods can be devised, that allow us, as researchers, to 
better understand not only the movements made by tourists, but also the decision 
making processes driving them (Blichfeldt 2008).  
2 Choice of location and survey design 
The pilot study was conducted at the Danish island Fanø. The choice of this specific 
study site is grounded in a number of unique characteristics. Firstly, the island is 
positioned in the middle of the Wadden Sea area, designated to be National Park from 
2010. The island constitutes a municipality; one of Denmark’s smallest, with around 
3200 inhabitants. Second, the local economy is heavily dependent on tourism, 
according to national tourist organisation VisitDenmark (2009: 21, table 13). In 2006, 
37.5 % of all purchases were made by tourists (ibid: 30), with in total 989,000 bed-
nights and one-day visitors, each with a daily expenditure of around 50 EUR. The 
main form of accommodation is holidays houses (in total 2700), rented out on a 
weekly basis. The by far largest group of holiday makers according to nationality are 
Germans and according to tourist segment, it is families with children, staying on the 
island for one, two or three weeks (personal communication: Poul Therkelsen, 
municipality director of Tourism and Business). Locally, there is great awareness that 
the most important resources for continued and stable development of tourism are 
landscape and nature, most of all, the broad, clean and sandy beach, along with 
wildlife such as birds and seals. These resources are in risk of being depleted if used 
too intensively, or visited at wrong times, for instance during birds’ breeding season 
(personal communication: Søren Vinding, board member of Nature Conservation 
society and municipality board member). When we discussed the option to track 
tourist movements with representatives of the municipality and the local tourist 
bureau (PT, see above), they expressed great interest in a study where the actual 
movement patterns of a representative group of tourists were mapped. This was 
particularly interesting in relation to maintenance of existing paths, bicycle tracks and 
marked trails through forest and open land as well as to establishment of new ones, 
physical and/or virtual in the form of GPS-mobile assisted experience routes. We thus 
found that Fanø would make a good test area for a system to monitor not only tourist 
movements in the landscape but also to question their motivation to go to certain 
places and stay there for longer or shorter periods. At the same time, in an experiment 
of limited scope, taking place in a clearly delimited area, we would have a good 
chance to test the set-up, the technology and the research design. 
For the pilot study, five GPS-units, of the type “Lommy” were provided. They can 
register their actual position, speed and direction of movement, and communicate it 
along with supplementary information on the GSM mobile phone network (Simonsen 
et al 2008, for technical details: www.flextrack.dk). Free and internet based 
geographical software like Google Earth/Maps and Virtual Earth can visualise the 
observed movement patterns and other spatial information, for instance grid-based. 
Part of the study set-up was constant access by the local research team to the server 
where GPS-data was stored upon being received from the GSM-network and – just as 
 importantly – to the derived KML files for interactive inspection in the Google Earth 
software. 
Also of importance were legal and privacy issues. It is not, and should not be, 
possible to track someone without them knowing it, such as can be done using mobile 
cell information (Ahas et al 2008). Another issue of concern is to which extent, the 
respondents/tracking objects should be informed about the purpose and design of the 
investigation? In this study, we compiled an informative text written up as a letter, to 
be read aloud to the (potential) participants. In the letter, participants were informed 
about the objectives of the study. A still un-resolved issue is whether awareness about 
being tracked impact the (spatial movement) behaviour of the participants? 
3 Observations and results 
The five GPS units were all given to the participants Saturday 11 July, to be carried 
until next Saturday, the 18. The participants were recruited at the reception of a local 
cottage rental agency, where the majority of the costumers are German tourists. The 
office is situated on the waterfront in Nordby, the largest town on Fanø, where the 
ferry from Esbjerg arrives. Visitors typically stop at the office and pick up the keys 
for their rented cottage immediately upon arrival to the island. The potential 
participants were approached, typically while queuing in front of the reception desk, 
during the peak hours from 12 to 15. They were asked whether they would like to 
answer some questions and perhaps take part in a study about tourists’ use of nature 
and landscape. If the response was positive, we would read the introduction to them – 
including the information that they would be rewarded with a small, symbolic present. 
Then, in case they were still positive, we would read or summarise the ethics 
statements to them, and then they were given the agreement paper with conditions and 
terms, for signature. At this point, the first two pages of the questionnaire were filled 
out, with basic address and demographic information, as well as questions about what 
they intended to do during the week to come. We then moved on to demonstrate the 
GPS units, how to carry and recharge them, a process taking 5 to 10 minutes. Apart 
from the demonstration of the units, participants were given a set of written 
instructions. Besides those, the participants were given (1) a recharger for the unit, (2) 
a notebook to be used as diary or logbook for any relevant observation they would 
like to make on the operation of or possible problems with the units. Finally, they 
were also given (3) a folder with  the project coordinator’s business card in order to 
provide a contact point in case of problems, and told to call, e-mail or send an SMS 
message, whenever help was needed. Finally, in the folder, they were given the last 
page of the questionnaire with the option of filling it out at their convenience, on one 
of the last days of the vacation.  
Once the units had been given to the participants and we had verified that they and the 
system were functioning, there was relatively little work involved in the experiment. 
We used the text-based website to monitor the health (Voltage) of the units and the 
Google Earth interface to monitor the movements and the time connected of each 
GPS-unit. This was found to work well and facilitate the activities of the study. Upon 
return, the project coordinator was present in four out of five instances. In the one 
 instance, when we were not present, we neither received the logbook, nor the last 
page of the questionnaire. One other participant, upon being recruited, expressed 
clearly that he did not intend to use the logbook, and we decided to let him take part 
anyway. The participants expressed that they had found it interesting to take part in 
the pilot study, and would be glad to do it again. Problems with keeping the units 
recharged, observed by us through the monitoring system, were not mentioned by any 
of them. The activities, which the participants stated that they were planning to 
engage in during their stay on the island can be summarised as follows (ordered 
according to times they were mentioned): Bicycling; swimming; being on the 
beach/sunbathing; jogging; roller-skating; kite surfing; beach buggy drive. In 
retrospect, the data show considerable agreement with the statements given at the 
beginning of the survey, with the participants who had the most ambitious plans also 
being the ones covering largest distances and going most “off the beaten track”. The 
data show that all participants did indeed spend most of their time at the beach, some 
of them taking their car there. They also seem to prefer staying at the holiday home 
until late in the morning, typically with the GPS-signals starting to arrive around 
10:30 a.m., as well as preferring to have dinner at home. On the other hand, although 
only two of the participants stated that they would “take a trip to town”, this trip was 
taken by four participants.  
A summary map of movements and stays, based on all registered positions in the 
server were made using the methodology described by Bro (2010), see Appendix. The 
data could not confirm that the special nature at the destination is an attraction for the 
average tourist, at least not if using nature is taken to mean going off the beaten track. 
4 Conclusions and discussion 
As this pilot-study shows, the challenges facing the researcher, who wishes to 
combine vacation decision-making theory and geographical approaches in order to 
shed light on the intriguing question ‘where do tourists actually go?’ are substantial. 
However, as also demonstrated, the combination of GPS-sensors, GIS- and database 
software and possibly GSM based mobile communication for real-time applications 
shows potential to be(come) a powerful tool for collecting and structuring evidence 
on tourists’ in situ decision-making and movements at the destination.  Amongst the 
practical problems encountered during the pilot study was the reliability of German 
mobile phone numbers registered in the questionnaire – our only means of 
communication with the participants, making feedback and check-ups in case of 
problems difficult. Furthermore, the logbook approach, as simple as it is, proved 
useful in verifying the results from the units, and could still be used as a supplement 
to SMS-input for an activity- or experience-map. In spite of the small scale of the 
project, a number of error sources and challenges were identified, including:  
• Loss of signal from the units when placed in car (and driving through forest), 
• Units running out of power during the day, for instance while on the beach, 
away on trip/excursion 
• Participants forgetting the units in the cottage when going out. 
 There is no easy way to overcome these obstacles, at least not given the technology 
available at the time of writing (autumn 2009), as also expressed by, amongst others, 
Stopher et al (2008). Still a combination of media and technologies, cleverly directed 
could bring us much closer to the answers we are looking for. Concerning issues of 
carrying capacity related to the challenge of making tourism sustainable (Liburd 
2005), analyses in GIS where the registered movement patterns are combined with 
land cover data could prove a useful contribution to the planning of physical and 
virtual experience paths. Also remaining is development of effective methods for 
combining data from questionnaires, in-depth interviews and/or focus group 
interviews (and possibly SMS-messages) with data on speed, positions and duration 
of stays originating from the GPS-units. In our study, the approach is predominantly 
descriptive, whereas more quantitative and GIS-based approaches, including agent-
based modelling, are adopted in other research areas (see for instance Gimblet and 
Skov-Petersen 2008). However, the use of on-line, interactive surveys, as 
demonstrated by Simonsen et al (2008) could prove to also be adequate for studies of 
tourist mobility during the vacation and in situ decision-making. 
References 
Ahas, R., A. Aasa, A. Roose, U. Mark, S. Silm (2008): Evaluating passive mobile positioning 
data for tourism surveys: An Estonian case study. Tourism Management 29, 469–486. 
Blichfeldt, B. S. (2008): What to do on our holiday. Anatolia – An International Journal of 
Tourism and Hospitality Research, 18(2): 4-23 
Briedenhann, J., Wickens, E. (2004): Tourism routes as a tool for the economic development of 
rural areas - vibrant hope or impossible dream? Tourism Management, Volume 25, 
Issue 1, February 2004, Pages 71-79.  
Bro, Peter (2010): Cleansing GPS-data from travel surveys in urban environments, 
Workingpaper//preprint, AOD (Inst. 20), Aalborg University.  
Gimblet, R. and Skov-Petersen, H. (2008): Monitoring, Simulation and Management of Visitor 
Landscapes. University of Arizona Press, Tuscon. 461 pp.  
Liburd, J.J. (2005) Sustainable Tourism and Innovation in Mobile Tourism Services. Tourism 
Review International vol. 9(1): 107-118. 
Nielsen, N. C. & J.J. Liburd (2008): Geographical information and landscape history in tourism 
communication in the age of Web 2.0. The case of the Salt River Bay National Park in 
St. Croix of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 25 (3-4), 
282-298. 
Shoval, N. & M. Isaacson (2007): Tracking tourists in the digital age. Annals of Tourism 
Research, 34(1), 141-159. 
Simonsen, A.K., N. Tradisauskas, H. Harder, P. Bro (2008): Udfordringer i forbindelse med 
GPS‐støttede spørgeskemaundersøgelser. [Challenges relating to GPS-supported 
questionnaires] Conference paper (12 pages) Kortdage, Kolding, Denmark, 27. oktober 
2008 - 29. oktober 2008. Accessed (11/3 09) at 
http://vbn.aau.dk/fbspretrieve/14828067/kortdage1 
Stopher, P., C. Fitzgerald, J. Zhang (2008): Search for a global positioning system device to 
measure person travel. Transportation Research C, 16: 350-369.  
VisitDenmark (2009): Turismens økonomiske betydning i Danmark 2006. [Economic 
importance of tourism in Denmark 2006] 
http://www.visitdenmark.com/NR/rdonlyres/CB00F11F-9BAB-4BA0-A487-
FD20BE7FEB78/0/TurismensoekonomiskebetydningiDanmark2006.pdf
 Appendix:  
 
Map of movements and stays on Fanø, Denmark. Registered by five participant 
families during the period 11 to 18 June 2009. Map created  by Anders Sorgenfri and 
Henrik Harder, AAU. Algorithm by Peter Bro, AAU. 
 


Approaches to GPS-survey of tourist movements within a North Sea island destination

Recent developments in information and positioning technologies, converging into portable devices offer new opportunities not only for tracking tourist movements, but also for interactive description and development of experiences. In this paper, we asses the usefulness of a small GPS-GSM device to track tourist movements on a Danish island dominated by summer house tourism, supported by a central database and Internet-based visualisation. Of equal importance to the technical issues, found to work as expected, was the psychological issues related to recruiting participants and make them share their impressions and provide information on their in-situ decisions.Recent developments in information and positioning technologies, converging into portable devices offer new opportunities not only for tracking tourist movements, but also for interactive description and development of experiences. In this paper, we asses the usefulness of a small GPS-GSM device to track tourist movements on a Danish island dominated by summer house tourism, supported by a central database and Internet-based visualisation. Of equal importance to the technical issues, found to work as expected, was the psychological issues related to recruiting participants and make them share their impressions and provide information on their in-situ decisions

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Approaches to GPS-survey of tourist movements within a North Sea island destination

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