Exploring the Spatial Characteristics of Stay Areas in Walking Tours through the Lens of Volunteered GPS Trajectories: A Case Study of the Zhuhai–Macao Metropolitan Area

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is commendable that this manuscript used GPS data from individuals and a top-notch clustering technique to analyze tourist behavior and activities in the Zhuhai-Macao metropolitan area of China. The findings of this study are generally profound and the research is generally well defined. I would like the author(s) to increase the novelty of their work before accepting it to make it more alluring.

 

Author Response

• The methods and technologies used in this study are mature and limited in innovation, but the results are great significance to Macao’s urban tourism, which is conducive to strengthening the connection between the two cities and cooperation in tourism development.
• Authors further indicated their findings to be integrated within the local governance system. Since Macao's economy is hostage to the single dominant industry of gambling, multiple industry including tourism related to Zhuhai can bring more chances to Macao SAR. Although the two cities own the significant advantages of geographical proximity, there are far fewer walking tour trajectories between them than expected. While there are more walking routes within each city. That is to say, the authors find that border management regimes significantly weaken tourism links between neighboring cities.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper addresses a pertinent issue, developing a research on the case study of the Zhuhai-Macao metropolitan area, based on data from geolocation trajectories and geotagged images to explore touristic walking preferences and the spatial characteristics of stay areas.

The article is well structured, and consistent with the aims of the journal.

It could, however, be improved by optimizing the following aspects:

• Framing and understanding people's behaviors through quantitative and parameter-based tools is always a challenge and also a questionable approach. Authors could integrate their introduction by specifying the limitations of a behavioral analysis, perhaps also referring to research that has applied behavioral modeling or other methodologies to understanding specific contexts.

• Also, research limitations – as mentioned in the conclusions – could be moved at the beginning of the paper (e.g. the biased use of 2bulu, and GPS positioning errors). This would help the reader to have a clearer picture from the beginning, even of the limitations.

• Conclusions could be enriched, possibly with the authors' thoughts & suggestions on how to potentially act and intervene in these areas, with the aim of enhancing the touristic offer also improving the tourist experience. How could the research findings be integrated within the local governance system?

• Careful proofreading is recommended to correct typos and errors.

Author Response

Concern 2:

The paper addresses a pertinent issue, developing a research on the case study of the Zhuhai-Macao metropolitan area, based on data from geolocation trajectories and geotagged images to explore touristic walking preferences and the spatial characteristics of stay areas.

The article is well structured, and consistent with the aims of the journal.

It could, however, be improved by optimizing the following aspects:

Concern 2.1

• Framing and understanding people's behaviors through quantitative and parameter-based tools is always a challenge and also a questionable approach. Authors could integrate their introduction by specifying the limitations of a behavioral analysis, perhaps also referring to research that has applied behavioral modeling or other methodologies to understanding specific contexts.

Response:

• Due to the lack of large-scale activity data and the tools to process them, early studies of human activity patterns were limited to traditional statistical and survey studies. Nowadays, thanks to the telecommunication and sensor technology, the rapid development and wide application of positioning technology represented by GPS have provided new opportunities for the collection of individual spatiotemporal data, making the data more realistic, accurate and large-scale. GPS trajectory data can reflect how people allocate the length of their different time resource on specific activities (Szalai 1966), effectively depicting people's activity patterns. A large number of scholars have carried out research on transportation, tourism, and residents' behavior based on GPS trajectory data, including data set management of residents' travel behavior and traffic time (Chai Yanwei, 2013), tourist activity patterns and travel space-time planning (Huang Xiaoting, 2010), emotional maps derived from the interaction of space and emotion (Noam Shoval, 2018) et al.
• And line 41 to line 65 (the second and third paragraphs of the introduction) of the original text also discuss the related research on GPS trajectory and tourism behavior, which proves the importance and universality of GPS data in the study of people' tour behavior.

 

Concern 2.2

• Also, research limitations – as mentioned in the conclusions – could be moved at the beginning of the paper (e.g. the biased use of 2bulu, and GPS positioning errors). This would help the reader to have a clearer picture from the beginning, even of the limitations.

Response:

• Moving the limitation part to the introduction part is done, which is expected to help the reader understand the full text.

 

Concern 2.3

• Conclusions could be enriched, possibly with the authors' thoughts & suggestions on how to potentially act and intervene in these areas, with the aim of enhancing the touristic offer also improving the tourist experience. How could the research findings be integrated within the local governance system?

Response:

• Add more analysis for GPS trajectory data in result part to support conclusions and discussions.
• Enrich the conclusions and propose related interventions.

Although Zhuhai and Macao SAR have the prominent advantage of geographical proximity, there are far fewer walking tour trajectories between them than expected. While there are more walking tour trajectories within each area. That is to say, the border management regimes significantly weaken tourism links between neighboring cities. Currently, Macao’s economy is hostage to the single dominant industry——gambling. Multiple industries related to Zhuhai, including tourism, can bring more opportunities to Macao SAR. Therefore, improving the border management system can be beneficial to the development of Macao SAR’s tourism economy, and this finding will also be incorporated into local governance.

 

Concern 2.4

• Careful proofreading is recommended to correct typos and errors.

Response:

• Spelling proofread has been made.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

... an interesting perspective on urban tourism presenting new ways of guiding tourists in natural and green urban / metropolitan environments...

Author Response

Many thanks for your work.

Reviewer 4 Report

An attractive, substantial and concise piece of research. The introduction section indicates the problem, then the research gap and the ideation of filling it, and the study's main contribution. The methodology is clearly presented, i.e. the logic of the research and the tools (e.g. DBSCAN algorithm) used. The proposed framework's empirical use confirms its methodological correctness and utility. The results are useful both in theory and practice. Good work!

I want to raise four points worth developing:

Choosing of '2bulu' website should be justified in a better way, at least by providing some statistical figures about its popularity, number of active users, market share etc. "large numbers of shared trajectories and geotagged photos uploaded by individual users" (lines 114-115) is not convincing. Also, more detailed numbers of observations being analysed are needed. 

Please avoid unclear terms concerning the core of your study, e.g. Urban Walkable Stay Areas or walking tour stay areas or walking tour spaces. (Whole manuscript, including title and abstract)

In conclusions and discussion section, a new aspect appeared, i.e. walking tourism. Therefore, please synchronise all the manuscript sections to make the flow of arguments more consistent (especially the introduction and conclusion sections).

Line 203 – "subjective reflections" or "objective reflections"?

Author Response

Concern 4:

An attractive, substantial and concise piece of research. The introduction section indicates the problem, then the research gap and the ideation of filling it, and the study's main contribution. The methodology is clearly presented, i.e. the logic of the research and the tools (e.g. DBSCAN algorithm) used. The proposed framework's empirical use confirms its methodological correctness and utility. The results are useful both in theory and practice. Good work!

 

I want to raise four points worth developing:

Concern 4.1

• Choosing of '2bulu' website should be justified in a better way, at least by providing some statistical figures about its popularity, number of active users, market share etc. "large numbers of shared trajectories and geotagged photos uploaded by individual users" (lines 114-115) is not convincing. Also, more detailed numbers of observations being analysed are needed.

Response:

• According to literature from WOS, SOPUS and CNKI as of October 2022, 2bulu data has been used in many disciplines. The main areas of application include building science, education, tourism, computer applications, biology et al. Considering the research purpose, possible lack of data and platform application scope, we tried to use 2bulu to carry out exploratory walking tour research. Before using the data, the authors also analyzed the reliability of GPS tracks in the coverage area of the two case cities.
• In order to ensure the reliability of 2bulu data within the scope of the study, the authors compared their tour data with those from other platforms. By combing Zhuhai routes of Qunar's (https://travel.qunar.com/p-cs299799-zhuhai) and Macao routes (http://travel.qunar.com/p-cs300028-aomen), the study reconfirmed that 2bulu's GPS track data has already covered all tourist routes of Qunar’s websites. The 2bulu trajectories used in this study are also tested by the tourism planning released by the two governments. According to the 200-meter buffer of the GPS trajectory, their coverage areas included all the tour routes in Zhuhai and Macao (https://masterplan.macaotourism.gov.mo/2021/index_cn.html).

Concern 4.2

• Please avoid unclear terms concerning the core of your study, e.g. Urban Walkable Stay Areas or walking tour stay areas or walking tour spaces. (Whole manuscript, including title and abstract)

Response:

• Replace Urban Walkable Stay Areas and walking tour spaces with stay areas in walking tour, and make sure synchronise all the terms in the manuscript.

Concern 4.3

• In conclusions and discussion section, a new aspect appeared, i.e. walking tourism. Therefore, please synchronise all the manuscript sections to make the flow of arguments more consistent (especially the introduction and conclusion sections).

Response:

• Replace walking tourism with walking tour, and make sure synchronise all the terms in the manuscript.

Concern 4.4

• Line 203 – "subjective reflections" or "objective reflections"?

Response:

• It is "subjective reflections". Since the photos are taken by tourists based on the personal preferences, the landscape characteristics are subjective rather than objective.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx