Co-visitation network in tourism-driven peri-urban area based on social media analytics: A case study in Shenzhen, China

Abstract The peri-urban area has undergone tremendous changes in various aspects. Tourism-driven development in this area, echoing the longing of urban residents for recreational and leisure space, provides an alternative to conventional urbanization approaches. Particularly, in view of heightened conflicts and fierce competitions that often occur in the area, developing the knowledge of the co-visitation network, or how different attractions and villages interact with each other from the visitors’ perspective, is key to more informed planning strategies. With the rapid development of online social media platforms and mobile devices, researchers can collect massive real-time data on the basis of online user-generated content. While there are already many attempts on its application on tourism design, few studies to date have explored how peri-urban attractions and villages are organized in same trips. In this paper, we design a new methodology on the basis of social media analytics to construct and map a co-visitation network, and apply NetMiner-enabled social network analysis to explain its structure and nodal functions. The usefulness of this methodology is demonstrated through a detailed case study in Shenzhen, China. Research findings reveal types of existing co-visitation patterns, which help planners predict future trends, design new experiences and take specific measures in line with visitor demands.