Spatial Modeling

Why is this method important?
Tourism is inherently spatial, involving the movement of people across geographic landscapes. Geospatial analysis, often facilitated by Geographic Information Systems (GIS), is vital for visualizing these flows, identifying spatial clusters (hotspots), and understanding how location affects tourism performance. It allows for the measurement of spatial spillover effects—where events in one location impact neighboring areas—and supports site selection and infrastructure planning by quantifying accessibility and agglomeration.
 
What has our team done so far? 
Our research has heavily utilized Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), including Global and Local Moran’s I, to detect spatial autocorrelation and identify “hot-spots” of hotel distribution and tourist flows in China. We have developed advanced spatial metrics, such as the Tourism Spillover Index (TSI), to quantify the benefits regions receive from multidestination travel routes,. At a micro-level, our team has used open GPS-trajectory data and Markov chains to classify tourist movement patterns (e.g., “day-climbing” vs. “night-climbing”) within scenic areas. Additionally, we applied the Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) to Wi-Fi probe data to characterize space-time tourist flow patterns in community-based tourism. We also employed spatial econometric tools, such as Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) and Multiscale GWR (MGWR), to analyze spatial heterogeneity in regional tourism growth and Airbnb pricing.

Recommendation

Zhou, Bo; Li, Zhao Rui; Yang, Yang

2026

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT

Wang, Shenghong; Yang, Yang; Tan, Yuwei; Chen, Jiaqi; Hu, Sike; Liu, Jun

2025

ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH

Tian, Fengjun; Wen, Zhihong; Yang, Yang

2025

ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

Related Presentations

Spatial Analytics

Workshop on Informatics, Data Science, and Economics in Hospitality and Tourism Research

University of Houston, Houston, TX

COVID19tourism Index and its application in tourism management

University of Perpignan

Perpignan, France

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Research in Tourism and Hospitality

University of Macau

Macau (Online)

Tourist behavior analysis using online user generated data

Kyung Hee University

Seoul, Korea (Online)

Related Resources

Pulse of American Domestic Tourism

“The ‘Pulse of American Domestic Tourism’ project serves as a digital monitor for the nation’s internal mobility. By mining transportation-derived mobility data, we develop a comprehensive matrix of tourism flows connecting American MSAs. This data-driven approach unveils the rhythmic shifts in visitor demand and regional connectivity. Crucially, we ground these digital insights through extensive cross-validation with household survey data, creating a verified, high-resolution framework for understanding the evolving landscape of domestic travel.”

Key Vocabulary Used (Why it works):

  • Inter-MSA travel flows: Specific and accurate to your methodology.
  • Arterial circulation / Rhythmic shifts: Reinforces the “Pulse” metaphor without being cheesy.
  • High-granularity / Spatiotemporal precision: Highlights the “Big Data” advantage.
  • Rigorously cross-validated: Emphasizes the reliability of your model (crucial for academic trust).
  • Ground-truth metrics: A professional way to refer to the survey data as the standard of truth.

Restaurant Resilience Index

The Restaurant Resilience Index was developed to characterize the regional restaurant industry’s resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic across U.S. counties. Estimated from econometric results regarding daily restaurant demand, this index incorporates key moderating variables—specifically ethnicity, political ideology, dining habits (eat-in vs. off-premise), and restaurant diversity—that were found to influence the magnitude of demand decline caused by the pandemic and stay-at-home orders. By visualizing these data, potentially through tools like an ArcGIS dashboard, the index enables government entities and stakeholders to pinpoint geographically vulnerable areas and effectively allocate support resources, such as consumer voucher programs, to the hardest-hit local businesses.

 

Link to the Restaurant Resilience Index dashboard.

Tourist Experience Simulation Tool

Tourist Experience Simulation Tool is a Web-GIS system designed to help tourism practitioners monitor and simulate tourist experiences under varying environmental conditions. This tool allows users to input specific scenarios defined by air pollution levels (specifically PM2.5), weather conditions (temperature, sun, wind, and precipitation), and date types (e.g., weekends or holidays). Utilizing a predictive algorithm derived from the sentiment analysis of geotagged social media posts, the system calculates “experience scores” to visualize the spatial distribution of tourist satisfaction across the city. This platform enables stakeholders to conduct scenario analyses, such as predicting experience fluctuations during heavy pollution events, and offers features for benchmarking specific locations and recommending itineraries that mitigate the negative impacts of poor air quality