A Study On Spatial And Temporal Modelling Of West Lake's Tourist Movements Using Semi-Markov Processes

Domestic tourism industry has entered the era of mass tourism, the group travel as well as backpackers, self-driving and other forms of Walks have been a great development. The pursuit of fulfilling life with more abundant of leisure time will encourage people to pay more attention about the quality of tourism. This situation requests destination managers to concern tourists'internal behavior. The previous study of the behavior of tourists emphasis on macro-scale space, micro-scale behavior of the tourists are still not be discussed enough, and seldom studies tried model tourist movement. Therefore, this paper aims to establish a sound methodology, using Semi-Markov processes to model the spatial and temporal movement of tourists. The objective is to understand, predict, control for, and optimise the decisions made by tourists in their choice of attractions. A better understanding of the behavior and movement of tourists within destination , will assist park managers and tourist operators with destination planning and marketing decisions.A case study conducted at the West Lake, Zhejiang, China is used to validate the model, with 519 samples form interviews,based on Semi-Markov modelling theory (Xia 2009; 2011). Besides the Semi-Markov simulation model of tourists movement, this paper further explore the application of model results, three comprehensive utilization of the results matrix are discussed, such as attractions classifying management matrix .In this paper. And ,we address conclusions as follows:⑴full discussion of the behavior of tourists at the macro and micro differences supports the applicability of Semi-Markov model to simulate the internal tourists movement;⑵Semi-Markov model tourists within the area can be space-time behavior simulation, the calculated transition probability matrix, the mean time matrix etc., can be applied to analysis of scenic spots for destination management;⑶V-SA attractions classified management matrix could be an effect management tool. Empirical analysis in the West Lake shows that the management of the matrix and the discriminant index is valid and classification results can be up to reasonable explanation, can provide a reasonable and appropriate countermeasures discrimination;⑷West Lake tourist spatial and temporal patterns of temporal and spatial characteristics and summary.