Spatial and Temporal Behavior of Chinese Tourists in Europe

Thanks to the advancement of social media, particularly the location-aware mobile social applications, it is now feasible to unobtrusively explore tourist behavior in time and space. Although the behavior of Chinese tourists has drawn great attention from researchers, there is limited research seeking to explore the spatio-temporal behavior of Chinese tourists by travel mode. Therefore, this study aims to analyze Chinese tourists’ spatial and temporal behavior when travelling to Europe by using online travel brochures and travel blogs on travel operators’ websites in China. The findings are prone to better demonstrate tourist nodes and popular trajectories through modelling tourist movement in real situations, and reveal the difference between independent and packaged tourists in terms of routes and behavioral pattern in time and space. From a policy point of view, the findings can provide insight for destination authorities and businesses in planning tour products, transport and attraction.