Identifying Tourist Spatial and Temporal Patterns Using GPS and Sequence Alignment Method

Abstract

This study identified the spatial and temporal patterns of national park visitors by combining global positioning system (GPS) technologies and surveys using the sequence alignment method (SAM) based on the concept of space–time path of time geography. Data were collected from a sample of 344 GPS tracks and questionnaires obtained from Gyeryongsan National Park in South Korea. A complex random stratified sampling method was employed to represent a national sample based on mobile positioning data. The result of the SAM analysis revealed that the derived visitor typologies constituted three groups from 83 unique paths extracted from 341 sequences. Significant intergroup differences were found for the paths based on average travel distance, average visit duration, and average travel speed. The main theoretical contribution of this study is in expanding the application of the theory by providing methodological improvements using SAM and GPS analysis of the theoretical basis of time geography.