IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i2p391-d1561594.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Comparison of Tourists’ Spatial–Temporal Behaviors Between Location-Based Service Data and Onsite GPS Tracks

Author

Listed:
  • Colby Parkinson

    (Department of Park, Recreation, and Tourism Management, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA)

  • Bing Pan

    (Department of Park, Recreation, and Tourism Management, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA)

  • Sophie A. Morris

    (Department of Society and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59801, USA)

  • William L. Rice

    (Department of Society and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59801, USA)

  • B. Derrick Taff

    (Department of Park, Recreation, and Tourism Management, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA)

  • Guangqing Chi

    (Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA)

  • Peter Newman

    (Department of Park, Recreation, and Tourism Management, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA)

Abstract

Tourism and recreation managers rely on spatial-temporal data to measure visitors’ behavior for gauging carrying capacity and sustainable management. Location-based service (LBS) data, which passively record location data based on mobile devices, may enable managers to measure behaviors while overcoming constraints in labor, logistics, and cost associated with in-person data collection. However, further validation of LBS data at more refined spatial and temporal scales within tourism attractions is needed. We compared observations of salient spatial–temporal measures from a stratified sample of onsite visitors’ GPS traces in a popular U.S. National Park during peak season over two years with a sample of visitors’ traces collected during the same period by a third-party LBS data provider. We described trip characteristics and behaviors within 34 points of interest (POIs) and then pre-processed both datasets into weighted, directed networks that treated POIs as nodes and flow between POIs as edges. Both datasets reported similar proportions of day-use visitors (~79%) and had moderate-to-strong correlations across networks depicting visitor flow ( r = 0.72–0.85, p < 0.001). However, relative to the onsite data, LBS data underestimated the number of POIs the visitors stopped by and differed in its rank of popular POIs, underestimating the length of time visitors spent in POIs (z = 1, p ≤ 0.001) and overestimating visitation to the most popular POIs (z = 180, p = 0.044). Our findings suggest that LBS data may be helpful for identifying trends or tracking tourist movement in aggregate and at crude spatial and temporal scales, but they are too sparse and noisy to reliably measure exact movement patterns, visitation rates, and stay time within attractions.

Suggested Citation

  • Colby Parkinson & Bing Pan & Sophie A. Morris & William L. Rice & B. Derrick Taff & Guangqing Chi & Peter Newman, 2025. "A Comparison of Tourists’ Spatial–Temporal Behaviors Between Location-Based Service Data and Onsite GPS Tracks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-22, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:391-:d:1561594
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/2/391/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/2/391/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ko Koens & Albert Postma & Bernadett Papp, 2018. "Is Overtourism Overused? Understanding the Impact of Tourism in a City Context," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-15, November.
    2. Alessandro Capocchi & Cinzia Vallone & Mariarita Pierotti & Andrea Amaduzzi, 2019. "Overtourism: A Literature Review to Assess Implications and Future Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-18, June.
    3. Peter Whitney & William L. Rice & Jeremy Sage & Jennifer M. Thomsen & Iree Wheeler & Wayne Freimund & Elena Bigart, 2023. "Developments in big data for park management: a review of mobile phone location data for visitor use management," Landscape Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(6), pages 758-776, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hugo Padrón-Ávila & Raúl Hernández-Martín, 2019. "Preventing Overtourism by Identifying the Determinants of Tourists’ Choice of Attractions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-17, September.
    2. Kinga Kostrakiewicz-Gierałt & Artur Pliszko & Katarzyna Gmyrek-Gołąb, 2020. "The Effect of Visitors on the Properties of Vegetation of Calcareous Grasslands in the Context of Width and Distances from Tourist Trails," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-28, January.
    3. Raniah Alsahafi & Ahmed Alzahrani & Rashid Mehmood, 2023. "Smarter Sustainable Tourism: Data-Driven Multi-Perspective Parameter Discovery for Autonomous Design and Operations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-64, February.
    4. Bauer Alfred & Gardini Marco A. & Skock André, 2020. "Overtourism im Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Akzeptanz und Aversion," Zeitschrift für Tourismuswissenschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 88-114, July.
    5. Santos-Rojo, Cristina & Llopis-Amorós, Malar & García-García, Juan Manuel, 2023. "Overtourism and sustainability: A bibliometric study (2018–2021)," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    6. John Vourdoubas, 2020. "An Appraisal of Over-tourism on the Island of Crete, Greece," International Journal of Global Sustainability, Macrothink Institute, vol. 4(1), pages 63-77, December.
    7. Nataša Danilović Hristić & Marijana Pantić & Nebojša Stefanović, 2024. "Tourism as an Opportunity or the Danger of Saturation for the Historical Coastal Towns," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-25, May.
    8. Xuan Liu & Guohui Zhou & Hanlin Wang & Ergang Wen, 2025. "Evaluating the Progress of Tourism in a Less-Developed Area of China: A Tourism Development Index Approach Based on Night-Time Light and POI Data," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-19, February.
    9. Adam R. Szromek & Zygmunt Kruczek & Bartłomiej Walas, 2019. "The Attitude of Tourist Destination Residents towards the Effects of Overtourism—Kraków Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Giuseppe De Luca & Ahmadreza Shirvani Dastgerdi & Carlo Francini & Giovanni Liberatore, 2020. "Sustainable Cultural Heritage Planning and Management of Overtourism in Art Cities: Lessons from Atlas World Heritage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-11, May.
    11. Michał Żemła, 2020. "Reasons and Consequences of Overtourism in Contemporary Cities—Knowledge Gaps and Future Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-20, February.
    12. Teresa Santos & Filipa Ramalhete, 2024. "Urban Transformation: Analyzing the Combined Forces of Vacant Building Occupancy and Socio-Economic Dynamics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-19, May.
    13. Fernando Almeida-García & Rafael Cortés-Macías & Krzysztof Parzych, 2021. "Tourism Impacts, Tourism-Phobia and Gentrification in Historic Centers: The Cases of Málaga (Spain) and Gdansk (Poland)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-25, January.
    14. Monika Murzyn-Kupisz & Dominika Hołuj, 2020. "Museums and Coping with Overtourism," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-23, March.
    15. Margrét Wendt & Anna Dóra Sæþórsdóttir & Edda R. H. Waage, 2022. "A Break from Overtourism: Domestic Tourists Reclaiming Nature during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Tourism and Hospitality, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-15, September.
    16. Laura Mariana Cismas & Cornelia Dumitru & Lucia Negrut, 2020. "The Analysis of Domestic and International Tourism and Travelling for Romania," Ovidius University Annals, Economic Sciences Series, Ovidius University of Constantza, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 0(2), pages 278-287, December.
    17. Stefano Duglio & Alessandro Bonadonna & Marilisa Letey & Giovanni Peira & Laura Zavattaro & Giampiero Lombardi, 2019. "Tourism Development in Inner Mountain Areas—The Local Stakeholders’ Point of View through a Mixed Method Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-19, October.
    18. Jelena DURKIN BADURINA & Daniela SOLDIC FRLETA & Larry DWYER, 2022. "Meet Sceptics, Neutrals And Believers: An Alternative Approach To Analysing Residents’ Attitudes Towards Tourism In Urban Destinations," Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 17(1), pages 24-44, February.
    19. Bruno S. Frey & Andre Briviba, 2019. "Historical Replication Preserves Cultural Heritage," CREMA Working Paper Series 2019-09, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    20. Shiwei Shen & Marios Sotiriadis & Qing Zhou, 2020. "Could Smart Tourists Be Sustainable and Responsible as Well? The Contribution of Social Networking Sites to Improving Their Sustainable and Responsible Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:391-:d:1561594. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.