This paper presents a novel method for modeling the spatio-temporal movements of tourists at the macro level using Markov Chains methodology. Markov Chains are used extensively in modeling random phenomena which results in a sequence of events linked together under the assumption of first-order dependence. In this paper, we utilize Markov Chains to analyze the outcome and trend of events associ...

Knowing tourists’ individual preferences provides the possibility to offer personalized tours. The challenge is to capture these preferences using a mobile device. During a field study in Görlitz three methods for elicitation were evaluated by computing the correlation between the tourists’ and the algorithms’ rankings. The results served to clarify fundamental questions en route to develop a p...

Tourism plays an important role in the economies of many countries. Tourism can secure employment, foreign exchange earnings, investment and regional development. To attract more tourists and local visitors, many stakeholders such as natural parks, museums, art galleries, hotels and restaurants provide personalised services to meet individual needs. With the increasing number of tourists comes ...

We suggest that differences between tourists be evaluated as part of any destination image study. In doing so, one can avoid the potential pitfall of deriving one single destination image by averaging over individuals with possibly very different perceptions. A typology of destination image measurement approaches is presented that provides a framework for the evaluation of past destination imag...

Crime on tourists is a topic that few tourism professionals like to discuss and even fewer would wish to endure. However, there are few tourist destinations in the world today that are immune to the problem. This paper attempted to place the location and incidence of crimes against tourists into two theoretical contexts. Hot Spot Theory and Routine Activity Theory provide a useful framework in ...

Since the Chinese economic reforms, the government’s policy towards travelling and tourism activity has changed. The population of the People’s Republic of China gained significant rights and possibilities to travel in their own country and conquer the international tourism market by package tours. However, the literature so far neglected the motivation of Chinese travellers in choosing their h...

One of the main aspects in the consumer behavior is the concept of involvement because it influences the decision rules used by tourists to reach the final decision. An empirical study of 600 international tourists reveals that motivation to relax, influences tourists’ involvement with the trip. A structural model shows that when tourists are motivated to relax they get directly more involved w...

The work described in this paper focuses on how to reveal culturally-related data to city tourists to help them in navigating both the physical space through which they are moving (the cityscape) and a conceptual space around points of interest which links them through shared stories of time, place, people and theme (the datascape). The research goal is to discover to what extent navigational s...

This paper focuses on the orientation behaviour of pedestrian city tourists. It explores the importance of landmarks for pedestrian orientation and shows the results of a study conducted 2005/06 in Vienna. The hypothesis of the study is that better orientation and guiding systems will lead to more and longer trips on foot. Individual tourists combine public transport with long walking distances...