Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
location issues and the distribution of tourism-related employment as part of the tourism
space economy (Page
et al.
, 1999; Hall and Page, 2006). For example, Chhetri
et al.
(2008)
employed a spatial econometric approach to modelling the spatial patterns of tourism-related
employment for South East Queensland, Australia, while Lundmark (2005, 2006) and Müller
and Ullrich (2007) focused on labour market mobility and seasonal employment in rural
Sweden and their signifi cance for regional development.
In addition to economic and population modelling the comprehensive geo-referenced
database ASTRID (generated by Statistics Sweden) has also been extensively utilised to study
various dimensions of second homes in Sweden and their effect on mobility, amenity values
and regional development (Müller, 2002a, 2002c, 2006a, 2006b; Marjavaara, 2007b;
Marjavaara and Müller, 2007), as well as contributing to the broader debate of the implica-
tions of seasonal and temporary mobility on estimates of regional populations (Müller and
Hall, 2003). Because of the ready availability of time-space data, GIS-based modelling has
also been used in a number of other studies of second homes in the Nordic region ( Jansson
and Müller, 2003; Overvåg, 2009, 2010). Given the capacity of GIS to integrate spatial and
other data as well as chart and illustrate tourist and population fl ows it is therefore not
surprising that it has become increasingly important as a planning tool for both public and
private sector. As Miller (2005a: 238) commented, 'The deployment of location-based serv-
ices . . . means that the private and public sectors will be collecting and using space-time
activity . . . data to sell and promote their products and programs. Researchers should also use
these data and tools to make our transportation, telecommunication and settlement systems
more liveable and sustainable.'
The utilisation of GIS and spatial analysis for tourism planning
GIS has been well recognised as a tool for tourism planning not only because of its capacity
to integrate spatial data but also because of its potential to represent data to users (Hasse and
Milne, 2005; Levy and Dickson, 2006; Boers and Cottrell, 2007; Hultman, 2007; Zhao
et al.
,
2008), including tourists (Zipf, 2002; Chen, 2007). The capacities of GIS as an accessible
bu si ne s s a nd publ ic pl a n n i n g tool h ave a l so been g re at ly adva nced by development s i n per son a l
computing as well as the availability of GIS platforms on mobile phones and computing
devices, which allow members of the public to access maps which may include a variety of
different information sources embedded in them to enable improved visitor decision-making
(Dickmann, 2005; Dye and Shaw, 2007). The inclusion of visitor monitoring and survey data
in GIS can also allow a thorough analysis of visitor use patterns, perceptions, activities and
product usage, which can be extremely important in the management of public use pressures
at tourist sites and destinations (Arnberge and Hinterberger, 2003; Chhetri, 2006; Connell
and Page, 2008; Landré, 2009), as well as in identifying tourism and leisure opportunities
(Chhetri and Arrowsmith, 2008). Indeed, a signifi cant contemporary development in GIS
modelling and mapping is the growth of
neogeography
(Turner, 2006), also referred to as
volunteered or user-generated geographic information (Goodchild, 2007), and how this can
be incorporated into spatial analysis and understandings of tourism behaviour (Elwood, 2008;
Flanagin and Metzger, 2008). In addition, user-generated content also has potential for inclu-
sion in dynamic maps for mobile tourism applications developed by private and public
providers (Schilling
et al.
, 2005).
GIS has proven to be valuable for studying the effects of changing land use by virtue of not
only being able to record resources within a given region but also being able to illustrate the
effects of developments, such as the construction of new transport networks or resorts, on
