World-leading research into tourist tracking conducted by the University of Tasmania could have a major influence on tourism policy development, including being utilised to prompt visitors to travel to bushfire impacted areas.
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The university's Tourism Tracking Symposium held in Hobart on Friday gathered academics, state and local policy makers and industry stakeholders to hear from local, interstate and international presenters.
University of Tasmania Associate Professor Anne Hardy, who led the award winning Tourism Tracer project, said the research project has attracted worldwide attention as the first project to profile and track consenting tourists as they travel.
"It's basically the first time in a real world that tourists have been tracked for the duration of their stay around an entire destination," Associate Professor Hardy said.
Launched in 2016, the Tourism Tracer project tracked around 1500 people over a two year period using a mobile app.
"We know how people traveled to the Huon and other affected areas in the Central Plateau and West Coast before the fires," Associate Professor Hardy said.
"What can we do now, if we get funding, is we can actually collect data of how they are travelling now and we can actually send them push notifications to encourage them to go to those regions that have most been affected by dropping visitation.
"We've looked at how tourists move through wine regions, we've looked at how they move through the World Heritage Area, we've been able to understand risk segments or tourists who drive quickly and unsafely and at night time.
"What we hope to do in the future is use that data to actually encourage different styles of visitation so we can actually help reduce crowding and provide better experiences for tourists."
Research participants were initially recruited at the airport and now the project has partnerships with Hobart and Launceston airports and the Spirit of Tasmania.
Associate Professor Hardy said the symposium would allow to increase their impact and what they can do for the tourism industry.
"What we really want to get out of Friday is some form of commitment from the government to actually push this agenda forward," Associate Professor Hardy said.
"We've been recognised as a world leader here in Tasmania through the tourism tracking that we do, and we really believe that we can contribute to what we already know.
"In the long term we can actually assist in providing better tourism experiences and also being much more detailed and accurate about where we provide new infrastructure for tourists."
The University of Tasmania is collaborating with researchers from Israel who have been conducting similar tracking research on a national scale.
"The world is really watching Tasmania in the tourist tracking space and we are honoured to have leaders of this calibre bringing their research to our shores," Associate Professor Hardy said.
"We are bringing in experts from all around the world and it is helping us add to our knowledge base."
Professor Noam Shoval, of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was invited to present his research on tourist tracking in Israel at the symposium.
"I have to say that the University of Tasmania, together with us at the Hebrew University are the only ones to do tracking on a national scale. Here it is a state scale, but Tasmania is three times bigger than Israel," Professor Shoval said.
Associate Professor Hardy said although you may not expect it, there are many similarities between Tasmania and Israel.
"What are actually finding with both countries is the impact of a major gateway," Associate Professor Hardy said.
"Launceston and Devonport are very important for driving regional dispersal in the state, and they've found a similar thing as well.
"If you can increase people's understanding of second and third gateways to a destination you can increase dispersal, and that is really powerful."
The University of Tasmania is working on a joint research paper with professors from Israel.
Professor Shoval said patterns of concentration of tourists around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, if tourists coming from Launceston and Devonport are taken out, are similar to patterns of concentration around Hobart.
"One one hand this is natural and good, on the other hand it is alarming," Professor Shoval said.
"Tourists are coming for less and less time globally. Its not like it was decades a go when you would go for one trip. This creates a phenomenon of concentration.
Professor Shoval said his research has found incentives can change the time-space behaviour of tourists to disperse them.
"The moment you know how much it costs for you to change this actual time space behaviour you can do actual changes in policy," Professor Shoval said.