Embracing geospatial analytical technologies in tourism studies

With the ongoing development of information and communications technology, geospatial technologies have become increasingly important in monitoring, managing, and predicting tourism activities. These tools can also uncover tourism’s social, economic, cultural, environmental, and political impacts. In this viewpoint article, we discuss applications of cutting-edge geospatial analysis in tourism studies. Topics include opportunities from emerging geospatial data, a new typology of spatial analysis in tourism studies, spatial analysis with the 4-Ws approach, and humanistic geographic information systems. This paper offers methodological guidance for multi-scale geospatial analyses that are essential to tourism research.