Spatial-temporal behaviour of hikers in the southeastern margin of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau: insights from volunteered geographic information

Abstract

Understanding the macroscopic spatial-temporal behaviour of hikers plays an important role in targeted planning, marketing and management for regional hiking tourism development. The southeastern margin of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with abundant outdoor tourism resources and several World Heritage Sites, was chosen as the study area, and the development characteristics of hiking tourism and the spatial-temporal behaviour of its hikers were explored by seasonal intensity index, kernel density analysis, line density analysis and K-means clustering with volunteered geographic information (VGI). The results showed that hikers differed significantly from traditional tourists in terms of travel time, travel mode and destination choice, which provide vital implications for sustainable policy-making and tourism management in general and in the southeastern margin of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in particular.