Using Geographic Information System to Visualize Travel Patterns and Market Research Data

Travel pattern data collected from a rural county in western North Carolina, United States, was analyzed using a geographic information system. Travel pattern data are valuable to destination marketers as it highlights potential regional promotions and development partners. Geographic information systems (GIS) can easily display in map form spatially oriented concepts such as travel patterns and provides easy viewing of the data. The generated maps provided a clear indication of regions, counties, and towns that tourism promoters in the rural county may consider as potential marketing and development collaborators. Additionally, by modeling trip distances per travel pattern, potential new markets were identified.

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