A Method to Assess Sustainable Mobility for Sustainable Tourism: The Case of the Public Bike Systems

Abstract

Tourism is closely related to transport and mobility, and sustainable tourism and transport is in the agenda of the main tourism stakeholders and policy makers. In this context, the bicycle is meant to play an important role as a sustainable transport mode and a key driver for sustainable tourism. This paper analyses the public bike share systems (PBS) in Spain through sentiment analysis of Social Media data (TripAdvisor, Twitter and Facebook) with opinions of residents and visitors, identifying positive and negative factors and their potential impact on sustainable tourism and transport. The approach is qualitative and quantitative, and takes into account data from 46 PBS systems during 2010/2016 period. The findings show that tourism, transport and mobility infrastructures such as bike paths, stations, timetable, and eBike provision need a coordinated planning as they are intrinsically related.