Space-Time Path Analysis

Space-time path analysis applies Torsten Hagerstrand's time geography to the study of tourist activity. In his 1970 address 'What about people in regional science?', Hagerstrand argued that an individual's life can be traced as a continuous path through a coupled space-time, hemmed in by capability, coupling, and authority constraints, and visualized in a 'space-time aquarium.' Applied to tourism, each visitor's day becomes a space-time path whose shape is governed by how fast they can move, where and when they must be co-present with others, and the opening hours and access rules of attractions. Shoval and Isaacson brought this framework into modern tourism research with GPS-derived paths, and movement-pattern work such as McKercher and Lau's connects the recovered activity sequences to a typology of how tourists use a destination.