Exploring new ways of visitor tracking using big data sources: Opportunities and limits of passive mobile data for tourism

Passive mobile data (PMD) are event data recorded by mobile network operators (MNOs) in the course of a consumer's use of mobile phones connected to public voice and data networks. Increasingly, MNOs provide such data for research and applications in tourism, anonymised according to national regulations and aggregated based on the technical and economic interests of the MNO. Alongside mobility research, it is evident that tourism research has been one of the early adopters of this data source. Possible applications of PMD in tourism research include the identification of tourists, the detection of temporal and spatial distribution patterns, and the analysis of spatial and temporal relations. However, a number of drawbacks have been identified. These include the results of anonymisation and aggregation procedures, and, most of all, the inability to identify tourist activities properly, as opposed to everyday or other non-tourist types of mobility. This paper analyses and aggregates the results of different research projects on different spatial levels in Germany in order to build a conceptual framework for the specific strengths and weaknesses of the use of PMD in tourism research. The study found that, at the current state of research, PMD can measure the mobility of people in space and time but are not suitable for correctly identifying tourists and distinguishing them from non-tourists. Destination management organisations (DMOs) that are working with PMD should be aware of these barriers and adapt their research questions accordingly. However, PMD can be a powerful instrument, particularly because of its high temporal and spatial granularity. •Analyses passive mobile data can add new insights about tourism-related mobility.•Correct identification of tourism flows is the main challenge.•PMD measure mobility rather than tourism as a special form of mobility.•PMD should be handled in the context of reference frameworks.•Research should aim to identify tourist signals despite strict data-protection rules.