FLOWS - analysis
of tourist flows
Tourist destination managers, service providers, researchers want to better understand tourist flows: what impact traffic flows have, when occur traffic peaks, what are the seasonal effects, which areas are more / less congested with tourists, how the weather, holidays and other events affect. With the help of analyses and forecasts, they could prepare for periods of increased visits, adjust marketing activities, service offerings or resources allocation. Today, the study of tourist mobility is largely based on surveys, physical observation and guesswork based on past experience.
About FLOWS
FLOWS is one of the four pillars of Tourism 4.0. It will enable GDPR compliant advanced analyses and forecasts of tourist movements based on anonymised data from a multitude of different sources (traffic counters, data from mobile operators, freely accessible Wi-Fi networks, tourist tax, vignettes sold, water and energy consumption, waste, social media posts, etc.). A simple user interface will display traffic flows: excessive traffic loads, seasonal deviations, entrances / exits to destination, movement within the destination, etc. It will be possible to display the analyses in the selected time interval (year, month, week, day), forecasts based on historical data, weighted by special parameters (weekend, weather, national or holiday in other countries, etc.).
Example of visualisation of tourist flows analysis
at the country level and for selected region/destination:
Based on these analyses and forecasts, tourist destinations and service providers can adequately prepare for periods of increased number of visits, redirect tourist flows to less congested areas and thus ensure a greater positive impact of tourism and a balanced sustainable development.
FLOWS will also complement the solutions of other providers, e.g. itineraries, reservation systems, revenue management systems, etc. For an optimal performance the system localisation is crucial to allow measuring, analysis and prediction that improves in time. With FLOWS, tourism providers, destination managers and researchers can better understand and manage person flows in overcrowded periods as well as lock-down time to maybe allow partial mobility of travellers to desired zones.
In addition to FLOWS, Tourism 4.0 also consists of T4.0 Core (a collaboration platform from which it draws various data), CIT (redirection of flows through incentives / rewards) and TIM (which knows the destination carrying capacity limits and tells when a destination will be overloaded).
Everyone with aspiration to support better understanding and optimisation of movement in specific areas is welcome to join us and share knowledge and experiences.
References
Mountaineering 4.0 project brings innovative technologies to the Alpine environment. The Alpine Association of Slovenia, CIPRA Slovenia and Alpine Club Tržič are setting up a footfall monitoring system for the visit of hiking trails. The system collects real-time data on visits to five popular destinations to enable a better understanding of the visits in the Alpine area and to support the sustainable rerouting of Alpine flows.
Arctur and T4.0 partners set up the system of 30 footfall sensors on five destinations: Vršič, Lovrenška jezera, Storžič, Osp and Kum. The collected data show for the first time the actual visit to the Slovenian mountains. The data on the hiking trails visit will also be included in the maPZS application and combined with other relevant and available data: i.e. weather, traffic, mountain accidents, and overnight stays.
