Testing an operation of prototype for automated assessment: Case of visitor profile of gauja national park

Abstract

This study is based on the authors’ research started in 2017 that resulted in the development of theoretical strategic and tactical models for the construction of a prototype for automated assessment of tourism economic impact in specific regions, including regions of national parks (NP), as well as for other studies. The aim of the research was testing the performance of the prototype in a research e-environment using the travellers’ survey data obtained in a study in 2019 on the national parks’ target groups (visitor behaviour) during the Gauja National Park (GNP) Travellers’ Days. The prototype was based on the open-source platform Drupal, MySQL used as a database management system (DMS). Drupal united with the Jupyter Notebook platform. The methodological substantiation of the test study is based on aspects of consumer behaviour. A quantitative study with details of qualitative research has been performed. Simple data sampling was used in the data acquisition, but in the analysis - induction, deduction approach, synthesis, data sorting and segmentation, determination of mean values and their expression in proportion; a comparative analysis was performed and conclusions characterizing the sample were made. After completing the prototype performance testing, the authors’ main findings indicate that the prototype’s performance efficiency in terms of time consumption is 23.3 times higher than equivalent work in MS Excel. The prototype has yielded quantitative results from the calculations, and that allows the formulation of the GNP’s Travellers’ Days visitor profile, which is characterized by a sample of the surveys.