A perspective on traditional verses modern technologies in tracking the tourists

Abstract

Historic city offers tourists a mixture of cultural heritage and leisure activities in a unique setting. However, there are limited research addressing the movement and behavior of tourists in tourism destination that leads the understanding of urban function towards "heterogeneity" and "multi functionality". In order to maintain and ensuring long-term success as an attractive destination for tourists, tourist’s movement and behavior is most likely an important element to be fully understood by planners and decision maker. Hence, the method of tracking tourist is one of the important aspects in providing better picture, especially in the context of obtaining accurate data on the tourist’s move. The traditional methods used to collect data on spatial and temporal activities are limited in accuracy and validity (Shoval et al. 2007). However, advance in technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS) can provide an opportunity to give more accurate data on tracking tourists. Hence, the studies were designed to determine the potential worth of the various tracking technologies for research on tourist movement in Melaka historic cities. The discussion in this paper focusing on 6 traditional and 5 modern methods of tracking tourists movement. Each of the tracking methods has their advantages and disadvantages. Accuracy, availability, location of the study area, costs, privacy of travelling, duration of tracking and suitability in tracking daily movement are used as variables to identify which tracking method is the best to track tourists in heritage site. Existing literature indicates that application of GPS in a mobile or smart phone emerges as the best option method for tracking tourists in Melaka heritage site. By comparing methods of tracking tourists, it may assist researcher to choose the best option of method to obtain accurate and precise data about tourist movement. Thus, the study offered a systematic review of several tracking technologies in which potentially able to push the boundaries of tourism studies, as well as improving policy making, planning and management in tourism area.