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Quantifying International Travel Flows Using Flickr

Author

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  • Daniele Barchiesi
  • Helen Susannah Moat
  • Christian Alis
  • Steven Bishop
  • Tobias Preis

Abstract

Online social media platforms are opening up new opportunities to analyse human behaviour on an unprecedented scale. In some cases, the fast, cheap measurements of human behaviour gained from these platforms may offer an alternative to gathering such measurements using traditional, time consuming and expensive surveys. Here, we use geotagged photographs uploaded to the photo-sharing website Flickr to quantify international travel flows, by extracting the location of users and inferring trajectories to track their movement across time. We find that Flickr based estimates of the number of visitors to the United Kingdom significantly correlate with the official estimates released by the UK Office for National Statistics, for 28 countries for which official estimates are calculated. Our findings underline the potential for indicators of key aspects of human behaviour, such as mobility, to be generated from data attached to the vast volumes of photographs posted online.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniele Barchiesi & Helen Susannah Moat & Christian Alis & Steven Bishop & Tobias Preis, 2015. "Quantifying International Travel Flows Using Flickr," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-8, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0128470
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0128470
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Bartosz Bursa & Markus Mailer & Kay W. Axhausen, 2022. "Intra-destination travel behavior of alpine tourists: a literature review on choice determinants and the survey work," Transportation, Springer, vol. 49(5), pages 1465-1516, October.
    2. Spyridon Spyratos & Michele Vespe & Fabrizio Natale & Ingmar Weber & Emilio Zagheni & Marzia Rango, 2019. "Quantifying international human mobility patterns using Facebook Network data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-22, October.
    3. Tobias Preis & Federico Botta & Helen Susannah Moat, 2020. "Sensing global tourism numbers with millions of publicly shared online photographs," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(3), pages 471-477, May.
    4. Chua, Alvin & Servillo, Loris & Marcheggiani, Ernesto & Moere, Andrew Vande, 2016. "Mapping Cilento: Using geotagged social media data to characterize tourist flows in southern Italy," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 295-310.
    5. Yihong Yuan & Monica Medel, 2016. "Characterizing International Travel Behavior from Geotagged Photos: A Case Study of Flickr," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-18, May.
    6. Xingshan Wang & Lu Tang & Wei Chen & Jianxin Zhang, 2022. "Impact and Recovery of Coastal Tourism Amid COVID-19: Tourism Flow Networks in Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-17, October.
    7. Ye, Zi & Clarke, Graham & Newing, Andy, 2021. "Estimating small-area demand of urban tourist for groceries: The case of Greater London," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    8. Huy Quan Vu & Shah Jahan Miah & Haiyang Xia & Gang Li & Birgit Muskat & Rob Law, 2023. "Advancing reliability assessment of venue-reference social media data for enhanced domestic tourism development," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 433-451, September.
    9. Tarmo Kalvet & Maarja Olesk & Marek Tiits & Janika Raun, 2020. "Innovative Tools for Tourism and Cultural Tourism Impact Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-30, September.
    10. Federico Botta & Helen Susannah Moat & H Eugene Stanley & Tobias Preis, 2015. "Quantifying Stock Return Distributions in Financial Markets," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-10, September.
    11. Merve Alanyali & Tobias Preis & Helen Susannah Moat, 2016. "Tracking Protests Using Geotagged Flickr Photographs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-8, March.

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