Using tracking technology to improve marketing: insights from a historic town in Tasmania, Australia

ABSTRACT

This study examines the movement patterns of different market segments in an historic town. It combines traditional visitor surveys with a bespoke tourist tracking application. Two analytical stages were undertaken. The first involved analyzing the movements of tourist segments and revealed that “heritage” tourists tended to visit for the shortest lengths of time. The second phase revealed that a visit of between one and two hours seemed to provide the best opportunity to explore the village fully, while shorter and longer stays did not. The insights challenge traditional notions that heritage-oriented tourists should form the target market for historic communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism marketing
• technology
• smartphones
• app
• Australia
• GIS
• GPS
• heritage destination

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of Sense-T and the Institute for the Study of Social Change who provided funding and administrative support for this research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Sense T [Sensing Tourist Tracking];