Investigating patterns of tourist movement using multiple data sources

Abstract

The investigation of tourism movement is fundamental for effective attraction and destination management. In particular, understanding patterns of movement to differentiate tourists according to their consumption of space and time has marketing and managerial implications. This paper uses a combination of mobile data, information about points of interest, and geographical data to investigate the movement of 2.95 million international visitors in Tuscany. The findings identify four types of international visitors according to their movement patterns and explore the differences between them and highlighting the consequential theoretical and practical importance of these differences for destination management and marketing. The paper also adds to the growing discussion on the use of mobile data, particularly its combined use with other data sources in the study of spatiotemporal behavior of tourists.