Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine available innovative technologies as a means to forecast visitors to the North Carolina State Park system. The research will use Google Trends as the innovative technology and using the data from Google search queries to measure relationship from searches to visitors. This examination will include literature review and data collection methods. Furthermore, the quantitative measures will include the Pearson Correlation Coefficient (Pearson) and Time-Series Linear Modeling (TSLM), which accounts for seasonal and trending values. The data from the state parks were provided by the Public Information Office of the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation. Additionally, the search query data was collected from Google Trends. Two locations within the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina were selected due to the exclusivity of the locations and to capture visit behavior in search queries. Those locations are Mount Mitchell State Park and Grandfather Mountain State Park.
Highlights
Tourism is a service-focused industry that spurs economic activity
The purpose of this study is to examine available innovative technologies as a means to forecast visitors to the North Carolina State Park system
The data from the state parks were provided by the Public Information Office of the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation
Summary
Tourism is a service-focused industry that spurs economic activity. The U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis (2020) released the 2019 figures indicating higher growth for industries with real GDP recorded at 2.1%. Google trends has been used to show search query data can assist in stronger forecasting on behavior (Choi & Varian, 2009; Höpken et al, 2018). Previous research has shown Google Trends abilities with tourism in Switzerland (Siliverstovs & Wochner, 2018), Portugal (Dinis et al, 2017), and Japan (Chang et al, 2017), along with many other countries. As seen in the Bergstrom et al (1990) research, forecasting experts use economic viability data as a measure of potential tourism impact. It can be concluded that examining the relationship of Google search query data and tourism activity can be viewed as both, modernizing and advantageous
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