Surveying the travel behavior of city tourists – A concept for using a smartphone-based tracking app

In the years leading up to the global pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, urban tourism has experienced remarkable growth. Despite the growing importance and influence of visitors on urban transport systems, the impact of tourism, especially the travel behavior of on-site visitors, has received little attention, especially in strategic transport planning. This lack of consideration is directly related to the fact that there is little to no information and data on tourist travel behavior. A survey we conducted in 2020 and 2021 in the German city of Kassel using traditional activity diaries provided some initial information on travel behavior, but it revealed that there are distinct errors and inaccuracies. In order to collect more accurate data, we propose a concept for using a smartphone-based tracking app to record the travel behavior of visitors on site. The plan is to combine a traditional visitor survey to recruit participants and collect general information about the visitor and the journey with the use of the tracking app. Hurdles include the short stay of city tourists, which makes it necessary to convince them to install the app as early as possible during their stay. We are aware that the recruitment process is very complex, but we expect the results to provide more accurate information on travel behavior.