Comparing spatial and content analysis of residents and tourists using Geotagged Social Media Data. The Historic Neighbourhood of Alfama (Lisbon), a case study
Comparing spatial and content analysis of residents and tourists using Geotagged Social Media Data. The Historic Neighbourhood of Alfama (Lisbon), a case study
Análisis espacial y de contenido comparado entre residentes y turistas con el uso de datos geolocalizados de redes sociales. El caso del barrio histórico de Alfama (Lisboa)
Resumo: Tourism flows to big cities have increased drastically in the past few years. Alfama district, in Lisbon (Portugal), is facing major changes, considering land uses, demographic features and social appropriation patterns in public spaces, caused by the intensification of tourism. The consequences of new emerging economic and symbolic values have accelerated a scenario of touristification and gentrification in the neighbourhood. In order to deal with such complexities, sustainable urban planning requires real-time data sources that can represent the tourism flows in a spatial and temporal perspective. The research question allowed exploring Twitter as an emerging data source and suggests how it can disclose new information about the use of space for leisure activities by analysing spatial patterns and content, using two sample groups: residents and tourists. The research method is based on an analysis of two years of geotagged tweets in the city of Lisbon, differentiating between tourist and resident users, and, in a subsequent step, in the Alfama district. The spatial distribution analysis and the content analysis have revealed not only spatio-temporal activity patterns but also emotional responses to new trends in urban tourism uses, consumption and perception of an increasing tourism pressure in Alfama. The results are relevant in the field of tourism and sustainable urban planning.
