The Research on Spatial-temporal Characteristics of Tourist Flow in Lanzhou Based on Sina Microblog Big Data

Abstract

Along with the popularization of e-commerce, the wide use of smart mobile devices and the social networking activity is increasingly frequent, social network location service information represented by the microblog has increased gradually and also provided new data sources and perspectives for the study of spatial-temporal characteristics of tourist flow. In accordance of Sina Microblog LBS (Location-based Service) checking data, the paper applied kernel density estimation method offered by GIS to research the space-time characteristics of Lanzhou city tourism flow from the dimension of time and space (season, time and region). The Results show that: Seasonal variation of tourist flow is obvious, there exist great differences in winter half year and summer half year, the double peaks’ feature is outstanding; April and June to August are all peaks. In the spatial density, it has the typical structural feature, which manifest as core-periphery structure features. From the first and fourth quarter to the second and third quarter, tourism activity expresses the situation which spread from the urban area to rural area. And the winter half year and the summer half year in special period are clearly convergent and divergent. In time period, tourist flow presents the skewed pyramid structural feature. It will reach to the summit from 11:00 to 13:00; tourism activities are throughout the most of scenic spots in Lanzhou from 11:00 to 18:00; and tourism activities are restricted to the main urban area and newly added district where have good tourist accommodation reception facilities from 19:00 to 10:00 at the next day. The turnout of females is more than males, at the same time, female tourists often fasten on main city, and male tourists prefer the suburban forest parks where they can go on rich outdoor activities , which reflecting the tourism time’s preference about gender. Tourists inside the province mainly trend to main cities’ scenic spots in the choice of tourism space, but they also have a definite preference about peripheral area’s tourist resources; while foreign tourists mainly fasten on main urban area and some strongly recommended areas. From the view of tourism flow activities track, it shows up the obvious “axis-point” position. Main urban area is the highly gather palace about tourist flow. Attracted by strip urban morphology of river valley, e-w trending backbone network and main scenic spots, it leads to the tourist flow have an obvious axis distribution character in space, among which Lanzhou Yellow River Scenery Line is the highly collective space area for tourists. Most of tourists’ behaviors trace acts as: Zhongshan Bridge-Baita Mountain Park-City God Temple-The Yellow River Mother Sculpture-Waterwheel Museum Park. However, in external zone, because of the lack of tourism traffic route and the highly scattered scenic spots, the tourism activity trajectory represents the clear character of scatter. Neither main urban area nor external zone forms the closed tourist circle