The Representation Of Tourists’ Perception And Behavior By Volunteered Geographic Information

Most of the data about the tourists’ perception study are collected by questionnaire.Using the Volunteered geographic information (VGI), this paper tries to characterize theimage perception of destination and features of travelling behavior reasonably. It makeapplied research on Dujiangyan scenic area to mining the spatial and text information of thephotos which were uploaded to Google Earth by travelers spontaneously. Base on theclassification, reorganization and information extraction of those photos, taking the method ofcontent analysis, with the supporting of the theories of relevant courses like geography,psychology and sociology, the author characterizes people’s travel routes through the photosto explore the tourists’ behavior characters and the perception of Dujiangyan scenic area fromboth macro and micro aspects.From microscopic point of view, the research result indicates that the spatial informationand text information of photos map out the scenic spots’ grades of Dujiangyan scenic area intourists’ perception. There are totally7famous major scenic spots. And the coupling of thetourists’ space perception on7major scenic spots and the real landscape location in scenicarea are achieved. The geographical location of specific scenic spots can affect the cognitivelevel of the image perception about tourists themselves. And there are obvious differences inthe tourists’ perception scale and characteristics on7major scenic spots. The acme of tourists’perception is the Dujiangyan canal headwork, especially the water diversion project namedthe fish mouth. Erwang temple which has profound relationship with it in cultural connotationis also an important spot that the tourists focused on. And the intrinsic cultural relationshipbetween them is also the content of tourists’ perception. The detail information of specificscenic spots photos reflect the tourists’ praise of Dujiangyan canal headwork, the admirationof the ancients’ cleverness, the commemoration of Li Bing and his son who are the pioneersof preventing floods, the love of beautiful mountains and rivers, and proud of our greatmotherland.Macroscopically,83.1%photos describe the Dujiangyan human landscape. Touristsperceive the strong local characteristics, also known as Dujiangyan water culture, in Dujiangyan scenic area, through total563sample photos. And it showed in5aspects: thescience of water natural resources, water-treatment policy, water control figure, folklore andfolk customs. In addition, the photos also reflect tourists’ attention to the environment withinscenic area and concern of the special geographical event.The photos are used elegantly to characterize tourists travel routes. Tourists’ perceptionchanges in the sightseeing district inside are quantized by calculating the different authors’travel path length and average photo distance. The study finds that the tourists travel routeshave marked differences. And the perceptual span and frequency of tourists are also different.The overall characteristic of travel routes are analyzed, including the hot travel route and thecenter scenic spot.This study enriches the tourists’ perception research perspective, provides new dataacquisition choices, and makes a bold attempt on mining space information and textinformation from photos of VGI. It provides new substantial evidence reference for tourists’perception research in tourism geography. It has positive and practical significance on scenedistricts planning, tourism products development and marketing and image-building of touristdestination.