GPS, Smartphones, and the Future of Tourism Research

The development of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, cell phones, and recently smartphones is a very dynamic domain, with the potential to capture ubiquitous and real-time spatial human movement and behaviour. The rapid adoption of these devices shows that our social interactions, economic engagement, and individual existence including personalised life activities are now being shaped using these devices, which have recently become easily accessible and more affordable. Although research employing these technologies in tourism is not yet mature, in our view enough has been accomplished at this stage to be documented. Furthermore, the possibilities for implementation of these technologies for the purposes of research are increasing and have the power to change tourism mobility research as it stands today. The expansion of navigation technology, the increased ease of gathering digital spatial data, and the growth in computing capacity to manage great volumes of data have led to a situation where it is time to consider both the spatial and temporal behaviour of tourist movement.