Spatio-temporal behaviour of cruise passengers at the destination: a big data approach using mobile location events

What is it about?

It is crucial to understand how cruise passengers behave in cruise destinations to promote sustainable urban tourism. In the past, researchers have relied on GPS tracking to gain insights into this matter. In this study, we use passive location events from smartphones to determine the activity spaces of tourists in Hamburg. We provide a definition for differentiating cruise tourists from other forms of mobility. This paper provides a deeper understanding of the spatio-temporal behaviour of cruise passengers at a given destination, with Hamburg as a use case. We find that cruise passengers have a relatively small area of activity, concentrated in the city's core tourist area. Foreign passengers generate most of their visits at the airport and in the city's shopping areas, while German passengers are most frequently seen at the railway station and at the city's maritime experience locations. This data source has clear strengths and drawbacks, and we discuss these and give managerial implications.

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