Harnessing social media to understand tourist mobility: the role of information technology and big data

Jinyan Chen · Susanne Becken · Bela Stantić

41 citations0/0 files storedTourism Review

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Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research Digital Marketing and Social Media

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to examine key parameters of scholarly context and geographic focus and provide an assessment of theoretical underpinnings of studies in the field of social media and visitor mobility. This review also summarised the characteristics of social media data, including how data are collected from different social media platforms and their advantages and limitations. The stocktake of research in this field was completed by examining technologies and applied methods that supported different research questions. Design/methodology/approach This literature review applied a mix of methods to conduct a literature review. This review analysed 82 journal articles on using social media to track visitors’ movements between 2014 and November 2020. The literature compared the different social media, discussed current applied theories, available technologies, analysed the current trend and provided advice for future directions. Findings This review provides a state-of-the-art assessment of the research to date on tourist mobility analysed using social media data. The diversity of scales (with a dominant focus on the city-scale), platforms and methods highlight that this field is emerging, but it also reflects the complexity of the tourism phenomenon. This review identified a lack of theory in this field, and it points to ongoing challenges in ensuring appropriate use of data (e.g. differentiating travellers from residents) and the ethics surrounding them. Originality/value The findings guide researchers, especially those with no computer science background, on the different types of approaches, data sources and methods available for tracking tourist mobility by harnessing social media. Depending on the particular research interest, different tools for processing and visualization are available.

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References

2000Marketing the competitive destination of the future 2018Big data in tourism research: A literature review 2019Technological disruptions in services: lessons from tourism and hospitality 2019Technology in tourism-from information communication technologies to eTourism and smart tourism towards ambient intelligence tourism: a perspective article 2014Geo-located Twitter as proxy for global mobility patterns 2018Over-tourism and the fall of Venice as a destination 2012Social Media Use and Impact during the Holiday Travel Planning Process 2014The People, Place, and Space Reader

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2024Tracking tourist mobility in the big data era: insights from data, theory, and future directions 2023Revisiting city tourism in the longer run: an exploratory analysis based on LBSN data 2023Analyzing and Leveraging Social Media Disaster Communication of Natural Hazards: Community Sentiment and Messaging Regarding the Australian 2019/20 Bushfires 202525 years of tourist tracking: a geographical perspective 2025Spatio-Temporal Tourist Behavior (STTB) under digital footprints: a systematic literature review

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