Introduction
Tourism has been one of the fastest-growing industries on the globe. Tourism is also a significant social feature of contemporary society, with substantial economic, social, and environmental consequences. This is a well-accepted fact that tourism-related initiatives always play a vital role in the economy of any state or nation, and have internal and external connections with other sectoral events. GIS applications in the tourism sector can be effective for investigating environmental conditions, determining the suitability of locations for proposed development sites, assessing the impact of tourism activities, managing visitor flow, and limited to recreational facility inventory, tourism-based land management, and recreation-wildlife conflict, and have been hampered by a lack of funding and unorganized procedures. The basic approach to planning tourism needs an Integrated Decision Support System (IDSS).
Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS)
A spatial decision support system (SDSS) is a computer-based interactive system that aids in decision-making even as solving a semi-structured spatial problem. An SDSS, also known as a policy support system, consists of a decision support system (DSS) and a geographic information system (GIS). GIS can integrate geographical data from different sources to provide information for proper tourism planning, designing, and decision making.
Web GIS Development
The Tourism Decision Support System (TDSS) can be connected via Web GIS, which delivers a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) and easy internet access to the system. The user interface consists of a large map (displayed as a street map or satellite imagery) with a list of layers, a menu bar, navigation controls, and a zoom slider. When compared to open-source software, commercial software (ArcGIS Server) implementation is simpler, less expensive, more user-friendly.
WETIS (web-based tourist information system) is a tool for promoting tourism in Assam. WETIS provides detailed information on historical, cultural, geographical, geological, recreation, administrative, and hospitality topics, along with photographs and object representations. There is a great deal of development of Web GIS tourism all around globe for destination tourism promotion.
Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS in Tourism
RS and GIS technologies are being used in tourism studies, including ecotourism planning, visual resource assessment and management, recreation and park management, facility surveillance, and appropriate site identification.
Tourism Planning
GIS technology is being used in planning for environmental sustainability.
Site selection is an essential feature of GIS in tourism planning. For example, utilizing appropriate location identification tools and topology helps identify potential areas for more tourism development.
GIS can identify the main tourist activity spaces within a destination as well as the flows between destinations, allowing authorities to implement strategic plans for better infrastructure. In a time-series and spatial format, GIS can be used to illustrate the impacts of tourism on different industrial sectors.
2. Ecotourism Development
In terms of a complex ecosystem and native population habitats, ecotourism development is a very sensitive issue in a specific destination.
GIS is being used to map inventory, buffering (identifying areas of human intrusion), and overlay mapping. It is useful to trace complex areas within the deep forest or mountain region using satellite images.
Impact analysis is related to this application because GIS can be used to examine the potential impact of tourism development on the natural environment
3. Tourism Service Management
In tourism service management GIS has the potential to improve, particularly in tourism business-related shopping centers. It can be used to display large amounts of data from various sources.
GIS has been providing useful and accurate location-based information to visitors, for example, through web-based applications. GIS spatial and attribute data can be posted on the web. Web-based GIS has to deliver tourism-related information through the internet.
4. Tourism Resource Inventories
Tourism resource inventories were created to provide organized, structured data about variables of interest to tourism planners and designers.
It includes natural resources, especially sea beaches, natural forests, mines, mountains, rivers and channels, waterfalls, national parks, safari parks, historical places, demographics, natural and cultural heritage sites, etc.
Resource inventories are beneficial for tourism planning, determining locational suitability, assessing the impact of natural resource uses.
By analyzing the spatial and attribute data types, it is possible to make a prediction for a destination hypothetically and examine its future from the lab before tourism development.
5. Location Suitability Under Conflicting Demands
The interest of local people in tourism development is a significant element for long-term tourism planning and development.
GIS can be used to assess the suitability of potential development sites, identify competing interests, and model relationships.
To manage and control tourism development while taking into account competing or comparable land uses and activities, available infrastructure, natural resources, and thus defining an area's capabilities and capacities.
6. Monitor and Control Tourism Activities
GIS can be used to monitor and control tourism activities over time and space.
Carrying capacity is an important element in a tourist destination because overcrowding is not a good sign for a tourist zone.
Tourism needs to be properly developed in a planned manner, and GIS can aid with the planning process because GIS has integration capabilities.
7. Tourism Marketing
The demand for marketing in the tourism sector has grown, and geographic information systems (GIS) can play an important role in tourism marketing.
Tourist movement is heavily influenced by geographic and demographic characteristics, experience, cultural similarities, and even time and space factors.
It is possible to create a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for a specific landscape using GIS software, and it is also possible to integrate digital maps on the internet to 3D models using hotlink tools.
8. Tourism Research in Visual Impact Analysis
Visual impact analysis is important in tourism research due to sustainable development.
It can help guide newly proposed tourism destination advancement and predict the impact of proposed structures in the planning stage.
GIS is capable of analyzing the visibility of a proposed destination by using visual impact analysis tools. This technology has also 3D tools which are very effective to analyze the visual impact on the earth virtually.
9. Decision Supporting Tools for Tourism
GIS is useful to generate links between spatial and attribute data and prepare topology in spatial features by creating a feature layer as an overlay within the feature, analyzing, searching, selecting by theme, and so on.
Due to these characteristics, we use GIS as a decision-support tool for tasks such as location analysis, land use planning, and tourism development planning.
Geospatial Advancements for Travel and Tourism Industry
Atlas
Tourist Maps
Sunrise and Sunset destination spots
Subway Maps
Off Beaten Tracks
Sustainable Tourism Planning
Hotel and Resort Bookings
GPS Based Travel Mode Detection
Time Zones
Eco-Tourism Site Selection
Geo-tagging
Trip Planning
Highway Planning
In recent times, analysts have emerged to use GIS in limited applications associated with tourism marketing.
