CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM

Space-time tourist flow patterns in community-based tourism: An application of the empirical orthogonal function to Wi-Fi data

Li, Luning; Chen, Xiang; Zhang, Luyun; Li, Qiang; Yang, Yang; Chen, Jin

Abstract

Community-based tourism is a sustainable form of tourism development where tourists visit residential communities to interact with local lives and cultures for an enhanced travel experience. Identifying and tracking tourist activities in community-based tourism is particularly challenging, as tourists have shared activity spaces with residents. The paper proposes a new method to study the space-time patterns of the tourist flow using Wi-Fi data. Specifically, we have tracked Wi-Fi probe requests over six months in the Shichahai scenic area, a famous community-based tourist attraction in Beijing, China. After deriving the tourist flow from the Wi-Fi data, we have applied the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) method to the identification of the spatial aggregation pattern and the temporality of the tourist flow. A follow-up explanatory analysis examines the environmental impacts, such as weather conditions, air quality, and travel days, on the space-time patterns. The study is among the first to employ Wi-Fi data to study travel behaviours in community-based tourism. The proposed method can shed insights into a better understanding of tourist behaviours in open-space, tourism-oriented urban communities.

Keywords

Community-based tourism; Wi-Fi data; space-time; empirical orthogonal function (EOF); open-space

Research topic

Tourist Flows and Location

Research method

Spatial Modeling, Big Data

Geographic area

China

Additional links for this paper

ResearchGate

Publisher Website

Web of Science

HOW TO CITE

Li, L., Chen, X., Zhang, L., Li, Q., Yang, Y., & Chen, J. (2023). Space–time tourist flow patterns in community-based tourism: An application of the empirical orthogonal function to Wi-Fi data. Current Issues in Tourism, 26(18), 3004-3022.

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