Cycling in Tibet: An analysis of tourists' spatiotemporal behavior and infrastructure. (February 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mou, Naixia; Liu, Zhiwen; Zheng, Yunhao; Makkonen, Teemu; Yang, Tengfei; Zhang, Lingxian
• Is Part Of: Tourism management. Volume 88(2022)
• Publication Date: 2022-02
• Subjects: Cycling tourists -- GPS trajectory data -- Spatiotemporal behavior -- Fluctuation characteristics -- Tibet; Tourism -- Periodicals; 338.4791
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2021.104418
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0261-5177

Abstract

Abstract: Cycling tourism has grown in popularity worldwide, motivating its inclusion in the development strategies of tourism organizations. This paper builds an analysis model based on spatial analysis and Empirical Mode Decomposition, providing a data-driven way to utilize GPS cycling trajectory data to analyze the spatiotemporal behavior of Chinese cycling tourists using a case study example of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The results show that: (1) The fluctuation of the number of cycling trajectories in Tibet presents multi-modal characteristics, corresponding to fluctuations in China's tourism industry and economy; (2) Cycling tourists in Tibet prefer to use national roads (arguably due to the safety of the road infrastructure and the availability of supporting tourism infrastructure); (3) Cycling tourism is highly concentrated in and around the popular attractions of Tibet. The presented data and methods help to understand the spatiotemporal behavior of cycling tourists, which is of great significance for tourism management.