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Touristification and smartization processes are commonly associated with economic growth strategies. Here we emphasize and demonstrate the need to consider the implication of these processes on social sustainability. Initial results imply that: (1) regions not specialized in tourism are associated with a lower share of population in poverty; and (2) regions’ ‘smartness’ level is negatively associated with the share of poverty. However, in regions highly specialized in tourism, smartization demonstrated an opposite association of increased intra-regional poverty. As residents’ quality of life is becoming a key policy consideration, understanding the effect of these socio-economic processes on socially sustainable growth has timely implications for regional planning, including for post-COVID-19 recovery strategies. This research has been funded by the H2020 programme, SMARTDEST project under grant agreement no. 870753.

Two complementary approaches are commonly used to study human behavior. The first one assumes the existence of a self-motivated individual, commonly referred to as agency. The second approach considers structure and situational variables such as social context and weather as the primary factors that direct human behavior. In the current study, GPS information that was analyzed using Geographical Information System (GIS) was utilized to scrutinize the time–space activity pattern of 276 tourists visiting in PortAventura theme park, a recreational tourist destination located in Catalonia, Spain in high temporal resolution. Since theme parks are highly controlled artificial environments, it is convenient to gauge both the characteristics of the park itself and of the activity patterns of visitors within it. The chapter investigates how structural factors such as temporal constraints (length of visit, number of planned visits) and the location of attractions on the one hand and visitor characteristics such as nationality and familiarity on the other affect the activity of theme park visitors. The results revealed that structural factors were more useful in predicting participants’ behavior than did personal characteristics and preferences.

Happiness and subjective experiences receive growing attention in the business and economic literature as a central force that determines consumer satisfaction. This process is supported, to a great deal, by technological developments in the form of portable and ubiquitous information, communication, and location technologies. In this article, we argue that the interaction of tourists with the destination is becoming mediated through technological apparatuses and thus products that are being consumed are becoming increasingly personalized. We call for a paradigmatic shift in the analysis of tourist experience and destination competitiveness which should build on the following four elements: (1) utilizing advanced methodological tools that rely on mobile and sensor technologies, (2) adopting disaggregated research approach toward experiences, (3) employing high spatial resolution analysis to allow a precise investigation of content- and place-specific experiences, and (4) avoiding the traditional differentiation between destinations as suppliers of attractions and tourists as passive consumers.

This paper will describe the research stages and tools used for monitoring participants’ attendance at the European Researchers’ Night, held in Palermo in September 2017. A combination of traditional survey instruments and new technologies was effected in order to analyse participants’ behaviour during the event. The results derived from these different data sources were also integrated and analysed in order to evaluate the success of the event from social and economic points of view. Data relating to participants’ mobility during the event will be described and clusters of participants proposed, based on their mobility behaviour.

In today's developed world, the ability of a city to generate good experiences for its residents and visitors is a main aspect of its attractiveness. A good city is considered to be one in which people feel secure, relaxed, and happy. This article explores the factors that influence the subjective momentary experiences of individuals in the city, while focusing on the impact of spatial variables on these experiences; 91 students living in Jerusalem, Israel, were asked to repeatedly self-report four dimensions of episodic experience, namely, sense of security, happiness, annoyance, and sense of comfort. Reports were sent in real time using a smartphone application during an eight-month period. The results, based on over 5000 experience samples, indicate that subjective momentary experiences, particularly sense of comfort and sense of security, are highly influenced by situational variables and environmental characteristics including type of activity and environment, place characteristics, and company. Surprisingly, personality variables which are considered to be a main determinant of wellbeing and general life satisfaction were found to be non-significant in the multilevel models that were implemented. This finding further supports the notion that momentary experiences greatly differ from general evaluations of subjective wellbeing.

Recent approaches in the research on walkable environments and wellbeing go beyond correlational analysis to consider the specific characteristics of individuals and their interaction with the immediate environment. Accordingly, a need has been accentuated for new human-centered methods to improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying environmental effects on walking and consequently on wellbeing. Immersive virtual environments (IVEs) were suggested as a potential method that can advance this type of research as they offer a unique combination between controlled experimental environments that allow drawing causal conclusions and a high level of environmental realism that supports ecological validity. The current study pilot tested a walking simulator with additional sensor technologies, including biosensors, eye tracking and gait sensors. Results found IVEs to facilitate extremely high tempo-spatial-resolution measurement of physical walking parameters (e.g., speed, number of gaits) along with walking experience and wellbeing (e.g., electrodermal activity, heartrate). This level of resolution is useful in linking specific environmental stimuli to the psychophysiological and behavioral reactions, which cannot be obtained in real-world and self-report research designs. A set of guidelines for implementing IVE technology for research is suggested in order to standardize its use and allow new researchers to engage with this emerging field of research.

At the end of 2014, over 93 percent of the world's population owned cellular phones, with penetration rates that exceeded 100 percent in most developed countries. Mobile phones have become an integ...

Advanced tracking technologies have facilitated the tracking of tourists' movement with high levels of spatial resolution, allowing for the exploration of factors that influence dispersal. However, the degree to which different analytical indices impact the results that they generate, remains under-researched. This study uses a high tempo-spatial resolution data set of location tracking information that was collected in the island state of Tasmania, Australia, using a mobile phone research application. It compares the results that emerge when four different analytical indicators are used to quantify tourist dispersal. The results improve understandings of the role that analytical indicators play in assessing dispersal, along with the underlying factors that influence tourists' dispersal at the state scale.

Reduced mobility is associated with decrease in both hedonic and eudemonic aspects of well-being. The current chapter investigates the potential of employing smartphone location tracking to investigate the association between deteriorating mobility and wellbeing among individuals with chronic disease during daily activity. The locations of 36 patients with sickle cell disease, a genetic disorder that affects the production of hemoglobin, were tracked continuously every 2 min using participants’ smartphones to allow the calculation of movement parameters such as walking and driving distance and speed. The results of the study were mixed. (1) While smartphone tracking could be performed continuously for long periods of time for some patients (e.g. more than 100 days of tacking), data quality was not consistent for other patients. Twenty-one out the 36 patients enrolled had poor or no spatial information. Based on the results of other studies, we suspect that this is mainly due to motivational factors (e.g. participants did not keep the phone’s location services on) and not a fault of the hardware. We conclude that future studies should implement some incentive or feedback mechanism that will enhance motivation of participants. (2) The association between daily mobility parameters and physical and mental wellbeing (i.e. depression, pain level) were in the expected direction, but results were not significant for the most part. While this could be attributed to the small sample of the study, it might also be the case that other indicators which better represent the tempo-spatial context of human behavior should be considered in the future.

In this article we introduce the method of sequence alignment and its uses for creating tourist typologies based on temporal and spatial movements through a destination. The sequence alignment method was first developed in the 1980s by biochemists who wished to analyse DNA sequences; it was adapted for use in the social sciences towards the end of the 1990s. Unlike traditional quantitative methods, sequence alignment is concerned with the order (or sequence) of events. Thus, it is well suited for tourism research, as tourism involves the mobility of tourists through time and space. In this study, a database composed of 305 space-time sequences of visitors to Hong Kong was analysed. Data were obtained using global positioning system devices which were distributed among participants. The sequences were aligned using ClustalG, a sequence alignment computer program. The analysis resulted in the identification of various classifications of tourists in Hong Kong based on their time – space patterns. Keywords: tourist typologies, global positioning systems (GPS), sequence alignment methods (SAM), Hong Kong

This study uses global positioning systems (GPS) technology to compare and contrast the behaviour patterns of first-time and repeat visitors to Hong Kong. The use of GPS recorders, coupled with an analysis using Geographical Information System (GIS) software produces highly accurate, fine-grained information concerning the spatial and time–space patterns of the visitors. The study findings build on existing knowledge that first-timers tend to travel more widely throughout the destination while repeat visitors tend to confine their actions to a smaller number of locations. However, the data also revealed that first-timers and repeaters spend different amounts of time at the same attractions and visit during different times of the day. First-time visitors also tend to make one long, extended day trip from the hotel, while repeaters tend to make a number of shorter forays, returning to the hotel intermittently during the day.

A growing body of research is focusing on tourism in urban destinations. However, there has been no research examining the impact of hotel location on subsequent tourist behaviour. This article fills this gap both theoretically and empirically, through an analysis of the time-space activity of tourists staying at four hotels in different areas of Hong Kong. The movements of 557 tourists’ day-trips were tracked using GPS loggers. The study concluded that hotel location has a profound impact on tourist movements, with a large share of the total tourist time budget spent in the immediate vicinity of the hotel. Further, the study illustrated the impact of geomorphic barriers on tourist movements. The findings have important implications at both a destination and enterprise level.

In this article, we illustrate the importance of time in understanding theme park visitor activity patterns. The study that is described here made use of the GPS (Global Positioning System) technology to track and record the time–space trajectories of visitors at the PortAventura theme park in Catalonia, Spain. The findings suggest that visitors to theme parks do demonstrate distinct diurnal and intradiurnal mass behavior patterns or rhythms of activity. The investigation of temporal activity patterns holds two main advantages: the first is that compared with spatial activity patterns, it is more straightforward to aggregate, present, and compare temporal patterns; the second is that the external validity of temporal activity patterns is generally higher than that of spatial activity patterns. That is to say that temporal activity patterns are more likely to repeat themselves in other environments. Practical, theoretical, and methodological insights that can be relevant to both researchers and sit...