Inbound tourism in Uttarakhand, India, before and after the 2013 Kedarnath disaster - Evidence derived from social networking sites using GIS

Abstract

Tourism is an important industry for the developing nations. The Indian Himalayan region attracts a multitude of tourists, but is highly prone to natural disasters that affect tourism. The 2013 Kedarnath disaster in Uttarakhand caused by the torrential downpour and subsequent flooding is one such example. In the present study, visitation rates were assessed with regard to the Kedarnath disaster using geo-tagged photographs posted on Flickr as proxy. Continued decrease in photo-user days from 2012 to 2014 was witnessed and the effectiveness of GIS in the spatiotemporal analysis of inbound tourism using big data available on social networking sites has been demonstrated.