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Embracing geospatial analytical technologies in tourism studies

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Abstract

With the ongoing development of information and communications technology, geospatial technologies have become increasingly important in monitoring, managing, and predicting tourism activities. These tools can also uncover tourism’s social, economic, cultural, environmental, and political impacts. In this viewpoint article, we discuss applications of cutting-edge geospatial analysis in tourism studies. Topics include opportunities from emerging geospatial data, a new typology of spatial analysis in tourism studies, spatial analysis with the 4-Ws approach, and humanistic geographic information systems. This paper offers methodological guidance for multi-scale geospatial analyses that are essential to tourism research.

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  1. Authors declare equal contribution to this paper.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Yang Yang

  2. Department of Geography, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Xiang Chen

  3. Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Song Gao

  4. Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    Zhenlong Li

  5. Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Zhe Zhang

  6. Department of Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Bo Zhao

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  1. Yang Yang
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  4. Zhenlong Li
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  5. Zhe Zhang
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Correspondence to Yang Yang.

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Yang, Y., Chen, X., Gao, S. et al. Embracing geospatial analytical technologies in tourism studies. Inf Technol Tourism 25, 137–150 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-023-00249-w

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