Abstract
Abstract. Cartography and maps have historically been valuable tools for tourism and travellers. In the pre-COVID era, tourism had been rapidly growing worldwide. supported by all the newest developments in information and communications technology (ICT). This fact raises concerns about its potential negative impact on tourist destinations. Sustainable management of tourist destinations is thus becoming necessary and stakeholders and individuals are already developing relevant initiatives and actions where cartography and geospatial information could play a special role.The profile of the modern traveller, however, is concurrently also rapidly changing. Modern travellers now have a wealth of internet resources available to them to aid them in selecting a tourist destination and planning a trip. Online maps are an example of such resources and are usually products of the so-called “new cartography”. The aim of this paper is to present the way in which tourist destinations are presented on the web through maps, what kind of geospatial information these maps contain, whether they follow cartographic standards and lastly, whether they provide an integrated presentation of the destination supporting sustainable management and satisfying the demands of the modern traveller.
Highlights
Tourist maps, whether in their classic paper form or as tourist information map stand/sign or as travel guide appendices, have always played an important role in displaying and cartographically describing travel destinations and assisting in travel planning
Modern travellers have a wealth of internet resources available to them to aid them in selecting a tourist destination and planning a trip
The aim of this paper is to present the way in which tourist destinations are presented on the web through maps, what kind of geospatial information these maps contain, whether they follow cartographic standards and lastly, whether they provide an integrated presentation of the destination supporting sustainable management and satisfying the demands of the modern traveller
Summary
Among the 80 official tourist destination websites which were studied, 23 (28.7%) did not have a map at all, even countries such as Jordan and Polynesia, which are considered exemplary for their tourism development policy. 26 of them (32.5%) had static maps mainly in pdf format available for download, while 31 had dynamic (interactive) maps with various formats and content (Fig. 2.). These findings are of particular importance in relation to the modern traveller’s requirements and will be discussed in the following paragraphs. A general conclusion from this study is that the presence of maps for the promotion of tourist destinations is limited and there are many shortcomings in terms of standards and content with regard to new tourist/traveller trends and demands During this era of internet information, in addition to the tourist product, the profile of the modern traveller. Questions that may arise are: to what extent does new tourist use online maps to choose the destination and to organize a trip and to what extent is he/she satisfied with the available online geospatial information?
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