NS29 Workshop 7

29th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research
Shaping mobile futures: Challenges and possibilities in precarious times

21-23 September 2021

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Title: Mapping the Beaten Track (MBT): Modelling tourism consumption in real time with GPS-methods

Organisers: Szilvia Gyimóthy, Mauro Ferrante and the MBT consortium

Affiliation: University of Palermo, University of Akureyri, Uppsala University, Copenhagen Business School

Description

Unsustainable growth in coastal and city tourism requires more innovative and effective methods to map, predict and alter visitor flows. Mapping the beaten track (MBT)* is hence both a scientific and planning challenge, which should better exploit the technological potential offered by mobile and GPS-tracking devices.

The MBT-network is an open initiative to connect Nordic and European research teams interested in or engaged in small-scale experiments of visitor tracking. This workshop aims at presenting an emergent knowledge platform that allows the systematic comparison of geolocational data collected in various contexts. We will discuss analytical approaches to tourism tracking as well as the intervention (nudging) potential of location-based technologies. We invite researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds interested in spatiotemporal consumption to advance methodical and conceptual perspectives together with us. First, we will briefly outline our mapping studies of cruise visitors conducted in Visby, Copenhagen, Palermo and Iceland, and second, we will collaboratively develop ideas, requirements and settings for future studies or experiments.

*”Mapping the Beaten Track” is a research network project funded by the Nordic Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS). The project gathers researchers working with spatiotemporal methods at Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), Uppsala Universitet (Sweden), University of Akureyri (Iceland) as well the University of Palermo (Italy); and aims at consolidating a research network for GPS-tracking technologies for tourism. The focus of the collaboration is on developing effective tools to assess, predict and transform day visitors’ and tourists’ spatial consumption in Nordic destinations. As a new knowledge sharing platform, the project will host 3 workshops and a doctoral course with a GPS-hackaton and is expected to advance the conceptual and methodical horizons of tourism mobility studies."