Measuring tourist activities in cities using geotagged photography

Abstract

Established methods to record tourist activities in urban centres cannot produce quantitative data with precise spatial references. Analysing geographically positioned photography retrieved from image hosting web services combines the accuracy levels of GPS tracking and the quantitative advantages of the large accessible data-sets of internet communities. In this paper the correlation of data-sets obtained from Flickr.com with statistical data, morphological constrains and the attributes of attractions are tested. Correlation between registered bed nights and geotagged tourist photography numbers was calculated analysing 16 European cities. Three tourist-historic cities with similar tourist markets were compared more deeply. The spatial patterns of tourist activity in Vienna, Prague and Budapest showed many similarities and some relevant differences rooted in the morphological constraints and the different level of local and tourist activities at specific sites.