The Rio Olympic Games: A Look into City Dynamics through the Lens of Twitter Data

Ana Condeço-Melhorado, Inmaculada Mohino, Borja Moya-Gómez and Juan Carlos García-Palomares
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Ana Condeço-Melhorado: tGIS Research Group, Geography Department, Complutense University of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Inmaculada Mohino: LoCUS Interdisciplinary Lab on Complex Urban & Regional Spatial Processes, Department of City and Regional Planning, School of Architecture, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Borja Moya-Gómez: Transport Research Centre (TRANSyT-UPM), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Juan Carlos García-Palomares: tGIS Research Group, Geography Department, Complutense University of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-16

Abstract: The Olympic Games have a huge impact on the cities where they are held, both during the actual celebration of the event, and before and after it. This study presents a new approach based on spatial analysis, GIS, and data coming from Location-Based Social Networks to model the spatiotemporal dimension of impacts associated with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Geolocalized data from Twitter are used to analyze the activity pattern of users from two different viewpoints. The first monitors the activity of Twitter users during the event—The arrival of visitors, where they came from, and the use which residents and tourists made of different areas of the city. The second assesses the spatiotemporal use of the city by Twitter users before the event, compared to the use during and after the event. The results not only reveal which spaces were the most used while the Games were being held but also changes in the urban dynamics after the Games. Both approaches can be used to assess the impacts of mega-events and to improve the management and allocation of urban resources such as transport and public services infrastructure.

Keywords: Twitter; spatiotemporal analysis; mega-events; Olympic Games (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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