Visitor Mobility and Spatial Structure in a Local Urban Tourism Destination: GPS Tracking and Network analysis

Koun Sugimoto, Kei Ota and Shohei Suzuki
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Koun Sugimoto: Department of Tourism Science, Graduate School of Urban Environment Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University; 1-1 Minamiohsawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan
Kei Ota: Department of Tourism Science, Graduate School of Urban Environment Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University; 1-1 Minamiohsawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan
Shohei Suzuki: Department of Tourism Science, Graduate School of Urban Environment Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University; 1-1 Minamiohsawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: Visitor mobility is an important element for facilitating sustainable local economics and management in urban tourism destinations. Research on visitor mobility often focuses on the patterns and structures of spatial visitor behavior and the factors that influence them. This study examines the relationship between visitor mobility and urban spatial structures through an exploratory analysis of visitors’ movements and characteristics, which were collected from surveys with global positional system (GPS) tracking technologies and questionnaires. The Ueno district, one of the most popular tourism destinations in Tokyo, Japan, was selected as the study area. For local stakeholders, the low accessibility levels between this district’s park zone and downtown zone have become a major destination management issue. We compared visitor movements and flow networks in various places from different major trip origins (railway stations) by using several analysis techniques (GPS log distribution, spatial movement sequences, and network analysis), and examined physical and human factors that caused the different mobility patterns. The results demonstrated that physical factors, including major transport hubs (railway stations), topography, commercial accumulation, and POI distribution, affected intra-destination visitor behavior, and segmented visitor markets into different main zones. Such findings could inform future destination management policies and planning in local urban tourism destinations.

Keywords: visitor mobility; urban tourism; spatial structure; GPS tracking; network analysis; Ueno district (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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