Image-based research methods for mapping tourist behaviour: smart photos

Abstract

Conventional research methods for understanding tourists’ behaviours need to be more practical and accurate when tracking tourists’ movements within a destination. In recent years, technological development has offered advanced technical approaches for data collection and analysis. Taking account of the tourist experience in post-industrial landscapes, this study introduces an image-based methodology to explore tourists’ movements at industrial heritage sites. Preliminary results are presented, using Liverpool’s Royal Albert Dock as an example of detecting tourists’ movement through use of a drone. The findings demonstrate that the selected method – Smart Photo – effectively maps tourists’ behaviour and movements, and that this provides researchers with a simple, fast, and accurate data collection and analysis tool.