Mapping tourist movement pattern using global positioning system (GPS) as an aid to sustainable urban attraction management

Abstract

Understanding tourist movement pattern is crucial for tourism stake holders to produce a viable tour product and offering quality place of interest and preference. This is due to the fact that it can increase tourist choices and satisfaction as well as generating opportunities and impacts for destination management as well as generating critical mass for economic benefit of the attraction. However, the theoretical knowledge on how tourist actually move still in the stage of debating where some researcher believe that tourist move influence by their motivation and individual behavioral and the other researcher argue that tourist actually move based on the setting of urban scape and facilities provided in the cities. This situation will limiting the ability of destination stakeholder or authorities to acquire sufficient information in determine tourist relevancy on selection of activities, spending pattern and use of space. Lack of knowledge on this scenario will lead the tourism planner designing the incompatible facilities and activities in the tourism destination for the tourist. Another vital need to understand on how tourists move is due to sharing the spaces with the local residence and the collision between them may lead to positive or negative impact depending how the policy makers and tourism planner provide the facilities and urban infrastructure. Majorly the tourism destination in south East Asia still lack of attentiveness when it comes to planning the tourist development. The tourism authorities develop the tourism product based on the assumption that they believe the tourist need but not based on the how the tourist really behave when their going on holidays. The emergence of advanced tracking technologies such as Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) is potentially being seen as suitable tools to recorded precisely on how tourist interchange and easily been updated from time to time. The high-resolution data gain from GPS could be used to regulate the carrying capacity of tourism sites more rationally, develop new attractions, improve the allocation of accommodation services, and reduce friction between tourists and the local population. In the prospect of developing countries mainly in the south-east Asia region, such technologies can help the tourism authorities to develop the quality place of interest and preference based on the data acquired from how the tourist behave at the destination level so the product that been offer will give benefit from various side. Considering using such system is still at its infancy and from the view of tourism planner it is relatively new and not expanded into its maximum potential.