Abstract
Established methods to record tourist activities in urban centres cannot produce quantitative data with precise spatial references. Analysing geographically positioned photography retrieved from image hosting web services combines the accuracy levels of GPS tracking and the quantitative advantages of the large accessible data-sets of internet communities. In this paper the correlation of data-sets obtained from Flickr.com with statistical data, morphological constrains and the attributes of attractions are tested. Correlation between registered bed nights and geotagged tourist photography numbers was calculated analysing 16 European cities. Three tourist-historic cities with similar tourist markets were compared more deeply. The spatial patterns of tourist activity in Vienna, Prague and Budapest showed many similarities and some relevant differences rooted in the morphological constraints and the different level of local and tourist activities at specific sites.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for the help of Mátyás Gede who produced the geovisualizations for this paper, and would like to thank some anonymous reviewers and some colleagues and family members for their constructive comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Bálint Kádár
Bálint Kádár is an assistant lecturer and PhD candidate at the Department of Urban Planning and Design of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. His research work focuses on the development of tourism infrastructures in historic urban centres. He is involved in such developments in Budapest also as an architect and urban planner.