Urban Destinations Research Articles

Estimating distance decay of intra-urban trips using mobile phone data: The case of Bratislava, Slovakia

The distance decay function has been attracting attention in diverse disciplines including transportation studies, spatial planning and urban geography. In particular, much discussion has concentrated on the measurement of distance decay on the regional scale, since the emphasis of the model utilisation has been on explaining interregional mobility (mainly commuting). The intra-urban context makes the estimation more complicated and the fundamental questions, such as how far people travel within the city to reach a variety of urban destinations, and whether there are potentially significant differences between these types of destinations, are still not answered in a satisfactory way. In response to this challenge, the paper attempts to reveal the spatial variations of the distance decay effect on movements in urban space through the utilisation of mobile phone data. The signalling data from all major mobile network operators in Slovakia represent new opportunities with high accuracy of measurement and complexity of representation. The methodological procedure for deriving data about human daily movements from the mobile network at the level of 1 × 1 km statistical grid cells is presented. The objective is to estimate the appropriate distance decay functions for urban grids and demonstrate the variation of decay curves within the Bratislava city. The findings relativise the decay law of human mobility. For the approximation of daily mobility within the urban area, the polynomial-exponential function – the decreasing function with a small increase of interaction intensity at a greater distance – describes the impedance of travel distance more preferably. However, a significant proportion of urban grids have recorded weak or even no decay. A question worth investigating is whether the resulting friction of distance is a result of a specific functional structure of the study area, or it could reflect an advanced stage of urban evolution.

Does Tourism Growth Influence Destination Residents’ Welfare in China? The Mediating Effect of Cuisine Diversity

This paper examines whether tourism can improve the diversity of cuisine and destination residents’ welfare. We constructed a theoretical model of tourism development-driven diversified welfare and found that, in open cities which receive tourists, non-tradable goods can be diversified by tourism development, which can enhance residents’ welfare. We further used cuisine diversity as a proxy of the diversity of non-tradable goods and established a panel dataset. Regression results indicate that tourism intensity positively influences cuisine diversity and welfare. The impact of tourism intensity on welfare can be realized through the mediating effect of cuisine diversity. Our findings remain robust after robustness checks, and subsample analysis shows that the positive impact of tourism on welfare is more remarkable in urban destinations with limited resources for tourism development and undeveloped cities.

Tourist Movement Patterns and the Effects of Spatial Configuration in a Cultural Heritage and Urban Destination: The Case of Madaba, Jordan

This study investigated the impact of spatial configuration on tourist movement patterns and its role in managing cultural heritage destinations in the city of Madaba. Understanding tourist movement patterns is important for the development of sustainable tourism practices in cultural heritage destinations, as it can help to identify attractions of high tourist impact and inform the development of strategies to mitigate the negative impacts on site preservation and management. Madaba is one of the largest homes to ancient mosaics and is one of Jordan’s most important cultural heritage tourism destinations. This study was carried out using a variety of methods, including observation, site exploration, tourist diaries, questionnaires, and interviews. Space syntax was one of the spatial analytical tools used to assess connectivity and integration. The study found that the arrangement of attraction points and routes, physical and visual connectivity, accessibility, and the location of tourist activities all influenced the spatial behavior of tourists. The findings of this study can be used to guide management and development policies such as redistributing tourist flow, managing and developing tourism resources, and promoting the adaptation of sustainable tourism.

Cultural attractiveness index for sustainable cities: Tourism Agenda 2030

Propósitoalineado con la teoría de la atracción cultural, el estudio propone un índice de atractivo cultural (CAI) que ayuda a los profesionales y académicos del turismo a evaluar y rastrear el atractivo cultural de los destinos urbanos (ciudades) en el contexto del desarrollo sostenible.Diseño/metodologíaAplicando el método Delphi, se reclutó un panel de expertos para realizar tres rondas de revisión para generar dimensiones y determinar indicadores y pesos correspondientes. Luego, el estudio verificó el CAI con datos estadísticos de tres ciudades de muestra (Londres, Nueva York y Beijing).HallazgosSe creó como CAI una estructura de índice tridimensional de 12 ítems (lugares culturales, actividades culturales y atmósfera cultural). El estudio también aplicó el CAI para comparar tres ciudades de muestra. La comparación identificó posibles aspectos a mejorar en el desarrollo del atractivo cultural, lo que confirma la utilidad de CAI para fomentar el desarrollo sostenible en las ciudades de la muestra.OriginalidadEl nuevo CAI ofrece una herramienta eficaz para determinar el atractivo cultural de una ciudad sostenible al mismo tiempo que llena los vacíos existentes en la literatura a través de un instrumento de referencia. El CAI también proporciona una herramienta eficaz para los administradores de destinos y profesionales del turismo para sus iniciativas sostenibles en las ciudades.

A oferta de Turismo de Cafés pela perspectiva dos(as) cafeicultores(as) brasileiros(as)

The economic, social and cultural importance of coffee growing in Brazil shows an expanding demand for tourist activities related to its production chain. Although coffee tourism has potential in rural and urban destinations, its offer lacks organized planning, structuring and information by the institutions related to coffee. Following previous studies from the perspective of rural producers, the objective of this article is to analyse the current context of coffee tourism in Brazil from the offer, through bibliographic and documentary research and survey application to Brazilian coffee producers between April and November 2021. In all, 87 valid responses were obtained, covering the five Brazilian macro‑regions. The results underline the plurality of activities offered on these properties, irregular presence in the coffee growing territories, concentration of structured supply in regions of traditional production and new occurrences in regions of recently valued quality production.

Are tourism strategies responsive to critical events?

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought tourism to an abrupt halt. Supply-side stakeholders suddenly found themselves in a lockdown with unusable assets, unprofitable investments and jobs in jeopardy. Using qualitative research, we take a closer look at how they dealt with this unprecedented crisis in the Slovenian urban destinations of Ljubljana and Maribor. Our results show that existing policy and strategy mechanisms did not equip the supply-side stakeholders to tackle the pandemic challenges. However, both institutional ad hoc responses were quick and to some extent adequate.

Influence of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Label on the Tourist Development of German Cultural Cities

The research project deals with urban destinations that have a World Heritage site in their tourism portfolio. Specifically, the project examines the extent to which the designation of a cultural site as a UNESCO World Heritage Site affects the qualitative development of the destination in which it is located. For this purpose, the model of Sternad and Mödritscher is used, which deals with qualitative growth leaps in companies. The nine growth areas identified in their approach are examined and specifically adapted to destinations. By means of qualitative interviews in four German destinations with World Heritage sites, the aim is to determine whether a development in these areas is discernible after the World Heritage designation.

Preferences for first and last mile shared mobility between stops and activity locations: A case study of local public transport users in Utrecht, the Netherlands

Shared transport modes can potentially contribute to first and last mile connections of public transport (PT) trips but this remains quite underexplored in the literature. Our study explores the user preferences for shared modes as first and last mile option to connect activity locations. We have focussed on local public transport in the Utrecht province, The Netherlands, which includes bus and tram lines. Its diversity in land use and PT network density, the overall high bicycle usage, as well as the increased proliferation of shared mobility concepts yield promising information which can be a harbinger for future PT integration worldwide. For both the urban and suburban areas of the province, we have designed and conducted a stated choice experiment. Respondents were able to choose from shared bicycles, e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-mopeds to reach their urban destination from a PT stop. For suburban destinations, we also included light-electric vehicles (LEVs), e-cars, and demand-responsive taxi services. Such a complete list of possibilities to travel by shared modes allows comparing the different options and producing trade-offs not available yet in the literature. A sample of 499 respondents (285 urban and 214 suburban PT travellers) considered their first and last mile mode choice of a recent PT trip in light of the new options. Results show that shared (electric-)bicycles and e-scooters are generally preferred over other shared mobility options. The latter specifically targets younger people (<26 years) and travellers towards suburban destinations. Still, a majority of PT users prefers not to use shared modes in the first and last mile. We found that age, current cycling behaviour and weekday/weekend travelling are the most important factors which determine these preferences. We argue that shared bicycles and e-bikes are the most capable modes in providing benefits to PT travellers in this context and, given the relatively low travel time sensitivity, can best be distributed around the most important PT stops.

Settlement in Nanjing among Chinese rural migrant families: The role of changing and persistent family norms

After nearly four decades of rural–urban mobility in China, most rural-to-urban migrants are still in a disadvantaged position. Nevertheless, an increasing number of them have started to pursue permanent settlements in urban destinations. Despite many quantitative studies concerning their settlement outcomes, little is known about the strategies employed and processes undergone by families in realising their settlement plans. The permanent settlement of migrants usually requires the commitment of their extended intergenerational families. We investigate how changing and persistent family norms feature in decisions over settlement plans made by nuclear families of the younger generation of rural-to-urban migrant workers in a Chinese megacity. Building on face-to-face interviews in Nanjing, we found reflections of individualism among the younger generation, such as a greater desire for personal fulfilment, stronger voices of wives in couples and the decline in filial obligation. The older generation also revealed certain aspects of individualism. They expressed rising concerns for their well-being and chose to accept the loss of authority in the plans to support adult children to settle down. Under a child-centred logic, parental sacrifice has been persistent among younger and older generations. Thus, difficulties encountered during urban settlement have transferred from the younger generation to their parents through parental sacrifice embedded in Chinese Confucian ideology. The exclusive urban housing and education systems, combined with the lack of care systems for children and the elderly, mediate these family norms.

Who is a tourist? Classifying international urban tourists using machine learning

A key issue in tourism management relates to the lack of consensus regarding a theoretical and practical definition of the term “tourist.” In turn, this results in a range of methods for counting tourists and measuring tourism. This paper presents a novel non-linear model for classifying international tourists in urban settings, based on machine learning classification methods. These methods utilize innovative feature engineering derived from photos posted on the Flickr social media platform combined with the specific urban destination street structure. The data science model that we developed for identifying international tourists produced an overall accuracy of 69% for Manhattan and 94% for Vienna and Prague, offering new tourism indicators such as repeat visits, travel distances, and short stays. The outcome of this study offers a better understanding of travel patterns among international tourists, which could improve international tourism management and promote a more practical and adaptable model for measuring and analyzing international tourism using machine learning and user-generated content.

Effects of perceived change of urban destination on destination attachment.

The impact of urbanization on tourism is a widespread macroeconomic concern. However, few studies have explored the impact of destination urbanization on such individual tourist behavior as destination attachment. By developing an urbanization perception scale and analyzing tourists' destination attachment, this study provides empirical evidence for the micro-impact of urbanization. A sample of 825 repeat visitors of Chengdu, China, was included in the partial least squares-based structural modeling. The results of several tests show that the environmental changes caused by green urbanization positively impact tourists' destination attachment. This study also examines the explanatory role of tourist experience satisfaction and behavior control in this relationship. The findings suggest that tourists' experience of urban change is critical for the sticky marketing of tourist destinations.

Impact of COVID-19 on vacation recreational walking: Evidence from an urban coastal destination

This study examined the impact of COVID-19 on recreational walking while on vacation, a relevant activity among tourists especially in urban destinations. We surveyed visitors to Costa Daurada, an urban coastal destination in Catalonia in August 2020. Only 5% of participants reported lower recreational walking levels compared to normal circumstances; 75% reported similar levels; and 20% reported higher levels. Higher recreational walking levels were associated with visiting local amenities or strolling and with a higher level of perceived safety from COVID-19 when walking. Higher perceived overcrowding was associated with less recreational walking. The pandemic may have altered recreational behavior while on vacation in urban settings especially by increasing outdoor activities such as recreational walking. If persistent, such behavioral changes could have relevant implications for both the tourism and recreation sectors and for local policymakers who aim to promote walkability while managing tourist pedestrian flows.

The Vacation Planning Problem: A multi-level clustering-based metaheuristic approach

We study the Vacation Planning Problem (VPP), an extension of the Tourist Trip Design Problem which is suitable for modelling scenarios wherein a tourist wishes to explore a large geographical area (e.g. an administrative region), rather than a single urban destination. Further to deriving personalized daily tourist routes i.e., ordered visits to points of interest (POIs) that maximize tourist satisfaction (profit), VPP also recommends intermediate destinations along the trip (most typically, towns to stay overnight) and accommodation areas, as well as optimal distribution of trip days among the different destinations. Herein, we formally define the VPP and present an innovative multi-level clustering scheme to group POIs together and an efficient dynamic programming approach for solving the problem. The proposed method yields higher-profit results compared to an existing approach, as it adopts a sophisticated approach in rendering the geography of the region to be visited by the tourist.

Sport Event Tourism in Bucharest. UEFA EURO 2020 Case Study

Mega sport events were among the very few types of events still attracting tourists during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and represented an exceptionally attractive tourism opportunity for Bucharest through the matches scheduled for the UEFA 2020 championship. Motivated by the novelty of the event which was organized for the first time in the Romanian capital city and motivated by the exceptionally restrictive context imposed by the sanitary crisis, the aim of this study was to analyze domestic tourist participation in and satisfaction with this event. An extended survey focusing on the autochthonous participants was applied to gather data and then further computed using SPSS software through crosstabulations and associated statistical analysis adapted for nominal and ordinal variables. The main results emphasize a large participation of Romanian football supporters who came specifically for the event. Most of them expressed dissatisfaction with souvenir, food and drink products sold within the stadium area but were satisfied with the COVID-19 measures and their costs. Supporters coming from rural areas opted for VFR accommodations while retirees and elderly supporters preferred hotels. Occupation and age were the main variables determining accommodation preferences as well as satisfaction with souvenir prices. These options may be valuable input for future adapted marketing strategies for sport event tourism in Romania. Lacking important urban tourist attractions and competing with other mature European urban destinations, mega sport events may represent an opportunity for autochthonous large cities to increase tourist attractiveness and maintain leisure travel even during periods of travel restrictions.

Local communities' and tourists’ adaptation to pandemic-induced social disruption: Comparing national parks and urban destinations

This study aims to identify the impact of tourists and locals' adaptation on national parks and urban destinations 20 months after the pandemic. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 154 tour guides from 21 national parks and 254 tourists from eight urban destinations in Indonesia. Tourists' and locals' adaptation is found to have a positive impact on economic conditions 20 months after the pandemic. Economic conditions at the pandemic's beginning did not significantly affect the adaptations. For urban destinations, economic conditions during the pandemic significantly affected the adaptations, but the locals' adaptation did not affect economic conditions 20 months after the pandemic. This finding shows that tourist adaptation plays a role in destinations and community adaptation only plays a significant role in national parks. This research has originality by applying social disruption theory to tourism decline. Theoretical implications offered by this research related to applying social disruption theory in the tourism context to see how people adapt to disasters when the tourism industry experiences a catastrophic downfall. This research also provides guidelines for increasing adaptive response to tourists and local communities through education, training, and cultural understanding.

Factors influencing the relevance of air quality in the attractiveness of a tourism destination: Differences between nature-based and urban destinations

Assessing tourism destination attractiveness is a dynamic procedure influenced by constantly changing factors. Despite the existence of various studies on destination attractiveness, less attention has been devoted to measuring the relevance of air quality. The growing concerns related to the impacts of air pollution worldwide, make it imperative to develop attractiveness models which incorporate air quality. Based on survey data collected from 625 visitors, this study examines the importance of air quality when selecting tourism destinations and the factors influencing it. Findings reveal a moderate importance of air quality when selecting tourism destinations, with pro-environmental behaviors at home, perception of the destination's air quality, age, and visitor origin being the most influential factors. The results show that air quality has higher importance when visiting nature-based destinations.

Analysing Urban Tourism Accessibility Using Real-Time Travel Data: A Case Study in Nanjing, China

This study aimed to evaluate the spatial accessibility of tourism attractions in the urban destination city. An analytical framework for assessing urban tourism accessibility at different spatial scales was proposed to provide references on the interaction of urban transport and tourism systems. In addition to the travel time-based measure, a modified gravity model integrating the tourism destination attractiveness, urban transport system characteristics, and tourist demand distribution was developed to evaluate tourism accessibility in this study. Real-time travel data obtained from the Web Maps service were used to take the actual road network operation conditions into consideration and improve the accuracy of estimation results. Taking Nanjing as an example, the analysis results revealed the spatial heterogeneity of tourism accessibility and inequality in tourism resource availability at different levels. Road transport service improvement plays a dominant role in increasing tourism accessibility in areas with insufficient tourism resources, such as the outskirts of the destination city. As for areas with abundant attractions, authorities could pay attention to destination attractiveness construction and demand management in addition to the organization and management of road network operations around attractions during holidays. The results of this study provide a potentially valuable source of information for urban tourism destination management and transport management departments.

Holiday Climate Index: Urban—Application for Urban and Rural Areas in Romania

Nature, landscape, relaxation, and outdoor activities are important motivations when choosing rural destinations for vacations. Therefore, when selecting a rural area as a vacation destination, we assume that climate features are important. We investigated the appropriateness of the holiday climate index: urban (HCI:urban) in quantitatively describing the relationship between climate and tourism fluxes in such destinations. We employed data from 94 urban and rural tourist destinations in Romania and correlated the monthly mean HCI:urban values with sectoral data (overnight tourists) for 2010–2018. The results show that weather and climate influenced tourism fluxes similarly in rural and urban destinations, supporting the hypothesis that HCI:urban may be used for rural areas as well. The information derived from HCI:urban may be useful for tourists when planning their vacations as well as for tourism investors in managing their businesses and reducing the weather and climate-related seasonality in tourism fluxes.

Managing Minor Events for a Sustainable Tourism Development of an Urban Destination

In recent years, a specific literature has been focused on the link between events and sustainability, aimed on the one hand at identifying the conditions for events to be sustainable, and on the other hand at pointing out how events themselves can become important tools for promoting a sustainable tourism. However, much of this literature focuses mainly on large events or events of a certain duration while literature on minor events is still quite limited. By means of a set of analyses focused on both leisure and business events of Milan (second largest Italian city), this paper wants to reflect on the potential role played by minor events in supporting a sustainable tourism development of an urban destination. The empirical evidences suggest that minor events could positively contribute to a sustainable tourism development of an urban destination. Moreover, in some specific cases small is better than big, meaning that minor events could be even more relevant than big ones in reducing seasonality (occupancy) and increase prices (ADR) in the hosting destination. In addition, as interesting side results, the study of the typical features of both minor business and leisure events confirm that even other non-economic dimensions are worthy of future investigation.

The New Green Challenge in Urban Planning: The Right Genetics in the Right Place

The creation of green areas within urban centers was born as a response to profoundly different problems, such as the demographic increase and the progressive urbanization of landscapes. Moreover, up to date, the genetics of plants has not been considered for urban contexts. The purpose of this review is to discuss the state of the art and the advantages in planning genetic improvement for plants for urban destinations, also providing technical information, that may contribute in a concrete way. Firstly, recent genomic sources and their potential contribution to breeding programs are discussed. Then, dividing the urban scenarios into four macro areas (i.e., urban/metropolitan parks, urban gardens, road verges and roofs/terraces/balconies), we described the role of genetics in the adaptability and sustainability of plants in these different contexts. In addition, we analyzed the genetic traits plants need to provide services for a city environment and population (e.g., pollution reduction, biodiversity conservation, soil stability, and food production).