The use of tracking technologies in tourism research: the first decade

ABSTRACT

The past decade has witnessed dramatic growth in the implementation of various tracking technologies in tourism studies. A thorough review of literature reveals that 45 papers were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, comprising 40 percent of the papers published in the three leading journals on tourism scholarship. The rate of papers published annually has grown in recent years and it is clear that this novel field is further expanding. The majority of studies analyzed employed GPS, mobile positioning, Bluetooth tracking, geocoded social media, and photo databases. The studies ranged in geographical scope from individual attractions to global capacity. Based on our review, tourism research that uses tracking data can be divided into three categories: the first generation of studies focused on methodological dimensions and the potential of tracking data. The second generation made use of spatially and temporally rich data and uncovered new aspects of tourism. The third generation made use of the new data sources to challenge fundamental questions on tourism and consumer behavior. Digital tracking data have clear advantages – data are spatially and temporally precise, geographic and temporal coverage of datasets is broad, and tracking data can be supplemented using questionnaires, sensors, and other sources.

摘要

近十年见证了利用各种追踪技术从事旅游研究的快速增长。通过详细的文献综述表明, 同行评审科学期刊出版了45篇该议题的文章, 其中40%的文章出版于三大权威旅游期刊。每年发表的论文数量近年有所增加, 创新性的研究领域进一步拓展。绝大多数论文利用了全球定位系统、移动手机定位、蓝牙追踪、有地理信息编码功能的社会媒体和相片数据库༛研究的地理范围从单独的景点到全球追踪能力。根据我们的文献综述, 使用追踪数据的旅游研究可以分为三个阶段༚第一代研究是利用追踪数据从事旅游研究的方法论与发展潜力༛第二代研究是利用丰富的时空数据揭示旅游业新的方面༛第三代研究是利用新的数据源挑战旅游消费行为的根本问题。数字追踪数据有明显的优势, 在时空方面比较精确, 涉及的时空范围比较广, 追踪数据也可以通过问卷、传感器和其他数据源进行补充。

KEYWORDS:

• GPS
• tracking technologies
• smartphones
• passive positioning
• tourism research
• tourist mobility

关键词:

• 全球定位系统
• 追踪技术
• 智能手机
• 被动定位
• 旅游研究
• 旅游移动性

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Noam Shoval

Noam Shoval is a professor at Department of Geography, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed his Ph.D. at the Hebrew University (2000) and conducted post-doctoral research at the Department of Geography, King's College, University of London (2000–2001). He was (2007–2008) an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Department of Geography of the University of Heidelberg (Germany). He spent an academic year (2014–2015) as a visiting Professor at the Center for Urban and Social Research at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. His main research interests are urban geography and planning, urban tourism and the implementation of advanced tracking technologies in various areas of spatial research such as tourism and urban studies and medicine.

Rein Ahas

Rein Ahas is a professor of human geography at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He is a researcher professor at the Estonian Academy of Sciences, a member of Eurostat Task Force, a Task Force on ‘Big Data and Official Statistics’ and the editorial boards of the Journal of Location Based Services (Taylor & Francis) and Travel Behavior and Society (Elsevier). His research interests include the study of spatial mobility and tourism, seasonality and climate change impacts. He has been actively involved in the developing of mobile positioning based research methodology for mobility studies and tourism geography. He was one author of Eurostat (2014) Feasibility Study on the Use of Mobile Positioning Data for Tourism Statistics.