At Madrid’s International Tourism Fair (FITUR 2015) we presented the application of WCT to city tourism, using data on the walkable network for strategic planning and sustainable management of destinations and for tourism product and service design purposes.
Background
Tourism is establishing itself as one of the major economic drivers in many cities. The challenge lies in identifying cultural tourism assets, highlighting their identity, creating a visitor experience that capitalises on the community’s most important asset: the “feeling of the place”.
WCT tourism placemaking
WCT meets the demand for tools that help visualise and manage tourism flows and facilitate decision making on investment and development of tourism products.
Walkability analysis linked to tourism
Urban tourism consumption mainly takes place on foot. There are many factors influencing the routes taken by visitors (location of landmarks, accommodation, collection and drop-off points, urban landscape, gradients…).
The analysis of these factors using WCT tourism placemaking allows these issues to be addressed and makes evidences available on which to base decisions aimed at enhancing the visitors’ experience and promoting the sustainable management of tourism in the urban environment: load capacity control, planning of services and investments, redistribution of flows…
Applications
The application of WCTtp to city tourism allows walkable network data to be used for strategic planning and sustainable management of destinations: design of products and routes, location of tourism services, management of load capacity, new investments and infrastructure.
Our methodology includes multi-origin –multi-destination flow calculations, allowing us to analyse tourist flows and plan actions on streets with the highest walking potential, thereby contributing to enhance the tourism experience and control load capacity.