The World Wide Lab: The Changing Nature of Science
June 6, 2009 at 3:02 am | In GeoWeb | Leave a CommentTags: ideas, neogeography, twitter, VGI
An amazing article from Wired magazine, by the great Bruno Latour that I dug out from the archives.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/research_spc.html
It’s short and full of big, roughly articulated ideas, but the main thrust is that the age of the conventional laboratory as the driving forward force in science is slowly coming to an end. I find that this meshes well with concepts of Neogeography and Mike Goodchild’s “Volunteered Geographic Information”, or citizens as sensors. Anyways, I found it a good read and it immediately got me thinking about how to harness this type of data for use in making an ABM.
In other news, I’m getting social and you can now follow me on Twitter – http://twitter.com/peterajohnson I’d love to connect with the audience, so please track me down.
Google Earth 5.0 – Make your own tour?
February 4, 2009 at 6:49 pm | In New, Tools, Uncategorized | Leave a CommentTags: Google Earth, Tool, Tour
Google has recently released the latest and greatest version of their free popular geographic information package. This version bring a whole host of new features, including the ability to look at historical imagery, the addition of Mars and underwater viewing. My favorite new feature is the “record a tour” option, which lets you track a session (including zooming and panning) while recording commentary. The resulting tour file can be saved as a .kmz format and shared via email, posted on a website or blog, or distributed to anyone else for viewing in Google Earth.
I think this could be a very neat way to create your own “mini tour”, and something that could be used in all sorts of social media tourism advertising content. I can imagine tourists, operators, and locals all creating their rich narratives of a location using this method.
To test out this new feature, I started to put together a tour of my favorite spots in the Mile-End neighborhood of Montreal. Some of the limitations of this feature became very clear. The quality of the satellite imagery, especially for dense urban neighborhoods or rural areas is not great. You really need to pick a location with nicely rendered 3-D buildings (like the Google example did, with Sydney Australia) or some other dramatic feature to be able to communicate much with the tour. Without these visual effects, the tour looks very flat (obviously), and it is difficult to describe anything so that a potential viewer would be able to find it later, or to be used as a marketing tool.
Instead, what I decided to do was integrate two of the new Google Earth 5.0 features into one – I made a ‘tour’ showing the historical images of one of my favorite Google Earth sites, alternating between an ice filled and ice-free Sydney (Nova Scotia) harbour. You can download the .kmz and add it into Google Earth:
Sydney Harbour
Technology Tools: Gathering Stakeholder Input Using Google Maps
December 15, 2008 at 12:53 am | In GeoWeb, Tools, Tourism | Leave a CommentTags: Barbados, community, Google Maps, Tourism
New web-based technologies such as Google Maps (aka “Geoweb” applications) are changing the ways in which individuals communicate their concerns. This is particularly true in the case of spatial phenomenon, such as instances of environmental change. Britta Ricker, an M.Sc student in the Department of Geography at McGill University is working on an exciting application using Geoweb technologies to gather stakeholder input into environmental change in Barbados. Barbados is a country that is uniquely affected by tourism and environmental change pressures, but also has a comparably small voice with which to advocate these concerns on a global scale. Britta’s work involved a series of hands-on workshops with local residents, working collaboratively to develop online maps of examples of environmental impact. You can take a look at some early examples of her work at her website.
A Sample GeoWeb Barbados Google Map
Using this type of tool has some very intriguing possibilities for community-based tourism research. Two main application areas would be as a tool for presenting community perspective (as Britta has done) and as a marketing tool. The community participation aspect uses the global reach of the internet and the rich spatial interface of the GeoWeb to both aggregate and present instances of community concern. From a marketing perspective, I could see Google Maps as part of a workshop to gather community input on places of local interest that could be developed into tourism products. Community members could work together to develop a Google Map and associated web site on a local resource with tourism potential – the Dr. Topo rock climbing maps of Nova Scotia come to mind, but with an associated social networking site for climbers.
For those of you interested in more information about putting together your own Google Map, here are some useful links:
2. Integrating Google Docs spreadsheet data with Google Maps
3. All sorts of examples: Google Maps Mania
4. Wired.com’s early article on hacking Google Maps
TourSim chapter published in Planning Support Systems volume
August 7, 2008 at 7:35 pm | In Simulation Modeling, Tourism | Leave a CommentTags: Butler, modeling, planning, publication, scenario, simulation, TALC, Tourism, TourSim
I’m pleased to announce that a chapter describing the development of TourSim, including a scenario on shifting tourist port of entry and identification of adoption constraints, is in the final stages of preparation for publication. This chapter is part of a new book “Planning Support Systems Best Practice and New Methods” published by Springer and edited by Stan Geertman and John Stillwell. I am excited to have my contribution included in this volume, as I believe that the chapters contained cover quite a breadth of the emerging field of PSS research, from a number of top researchers. In preparing the manuscript, I was particularly drawn to the focus that this volume has on identifying and negotiating the constraints that may hinder the adoption of PSS in planning practice.
This book will be available for purchase early in 2009.
The image below is reproduced in the chapter, and shows an earlier version of TourSim running a port of entry scenario. This scenario can be run here.
TourSim running a port of entry scenario
I want your opinion!
May 6, 2008 at 1:32 am | In Tourism | Leave a CommentTags: blueberry, feedback, survey, Tourism
Just a reminder that your opinion is a big part of my research. If you have used any of the versions of TourSim on this site, please take a moment to fill out a survey. The TourSim evaluation survey is a great place to start.
Thank you for your interest and help!
Peter
p.s. I highly recommend a visit to Oxford Nova Scotia, the Blueberry Capital of Canada.
New data sources and experimental options
May 1, 2008 at 2:03 am | In Nova Scotia Tourism, Simulation Modeling, Tourism | Leave a CommentTags: adaptation, agent, Butler's curve, complexity, life cycle, model, research, simulation, TALC, Tourism
I’ve made some major alterations to TourSim, both in the data that it relies on, and the types of experimentation it supports. I’m thinking that this is going to make TourSim much more usable for tourism planning, and begins to incorporate many of the ideas of complexity science (such as adaptation) into TourSim.
First, TourSim now uses tourist preference data from the 2004 Nova Scotia Tourist Exit Survey. This survey has a wider range of accommodation and activity options, and the types of categories represented relate much more intuitively to the types of tourism products available in Nova Scotia. Additionally, the number of responses included in the Tourist Exit Survey is considerably larger than the CTS and ITS I have previously been using. The Tourist Exit Survey also segments tourists based on generating market (Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada, New England, Other USA, and International). Each class of tourist has their own range of activity and accommodation preferences, and you can now see the percentage of each market that is arriving in Nova Scotia.
I’ve also improved the destination adaptation function. This is designed to represent destination development in response to high levels of visitation. Several steps are used to model this function:
1) Destination Capacity. Each destination has a maximum capacity for visits, based on occupancy data provided by a mandatory reporting program conducted by the Nova Scotia Department of Tourism, Culture, and Heritage. While this capacity varies considerably from season to season, this occupancy limit represents the maximum accommodation capacity if all accommodations are open.
2) Every month, the destination examines the number of tourists who have visited in that month. If the destination is at 80% of its capacity (this threshold is adjustable by the user), then the destination increases its capacity by 5% (this percentage again can be adjusted by the user).
3) Advertising: This adaptation function also works for destinations that don’t come close to their capacities. If a destination is below 30% of their capacity, the destination “advertises” and raises the likelihood that it will be randomly selected for evaluation by the tourist. Of course, this isn’t exactly how advertising works, but in the simplified world of TourSim, things are a bit different.
All of these variables can be manipulated by you, the user at the start of the model. Like with other versions you can select specific destinations to focus on, and compare simulation results produced with different variables. Check out the new scenario and let me know what you think!
Cheers,
Peter
A Simple Tourism Model with Excel
April 17, 2008 at 6:23 pm | In Simulation Modeling | 1 CommentTags: Excel, life cycle, model, Tourism
While there is quite a bit of interest in several fields in ABMs as an approach to studying issues such as resilience, and thresholds, their complexity and technical nature is a significant barrier to their use. I’ve had a number of discussions with McGill professor Dr. Garry Peterson about alternate modeling approaches. One technology that he uses in both classes and in his publications is a simple Excel spreadsheet. I’m constantly amazed by the functionality that is included in Excel, and have even seen some simple ABMs built using it.
I’ve put together a simple TALC in Excel and would appreciate any feedback. Although I use the term TALC (tourism area life cycel, after Richard Butler’s seminal work), the only real similarity is that I’ve added a level of capacity to the model. I’m intending this as just a simple toy to facilitate thinking about tourism dynamics, thresholds and resilience. You can experiment with tourist growth rate, decay, threshold, and the effects of the threshold.
Let me know whether you think that this type of tool would be useful as a teaching or research aid? What other dynamics or interactions would be useful to incorporate into a simple model such as this?
You can download the spreadsheet here.
Update: This spreadsheet is one of the more frequently visited parts of my blog, so I’ve decided to put some more effort into it. I’m taking a look at some neat visualization strategies with Google Docs, so expect some changes and a new post very soon.
Adaptative Destination Model
April 13, 2008 at 4:04 pm | In Nova Scotia Tourism, Simulation Modeling | Leave a CommentTags: adaptive behaviour, agent, capacity
For quite a while now I’ve been trying to expand the types of adaptive behaviour included in TourSim. Currently the tourists display a type of adaptive behaviour, as they move to destinations that satisfy their preferences. In the Baddeck Hotel Development model, tourists would adapt to the development of a new hotel, as more tourists visited Baddeck because of this new type of accommodation.
To take this a bit further, what I wanted to include was destination development in terms of tourist capacity. Of course, this is the classic measure used in Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle, one of the most widely cited models in tourism research. What I’ve added to TourSim is a measure of destination capacity. If a destination attracts enough tourists per day to be within 80% of their capacity, they add 20% more capacity. This is process is triggered once a month. You can take a look at my new adaptation model and test this out (or head to the Tourism Scenarios tab for more information). I’ve included a toggle-type button that will turn adaptation on and off, so you can compare the two types of scenarios. As always, let me know what you think. I’ve already gotten some great feedback, but there is always room for more.
Baddeck Hotel Development Results
March 11, 2008 at 2:12 am | In Nova Scotia Tourism, Results, Simulation Modeling, Tourism | Leave a CommentI’ve been putting together some sample results using the Baddeck Hotel Development scenario. I ran the model with the default range of accommodations, and then re-ran it with the “Add Hotel at Baddeck” button selected. You can experiment with this same scenario under the Tourism Scenarios tab. Below I’ve added a chart that shows the percentage change in tourist visitation per day (blue bar) and percentage change in income per day (green bar) at select destinations. This shows the difference between the base scenario and the add hotel scenario.
What is immediately clear in this chart is the dramatic effect on both visitation and income that adding hotel accommodations at Baddeck has. Also, you can see the effect that this new competition has had on neighboring destinations.
Big improvements!
February 5, 2008 at 2:59 am | In New, Nova Scotia Tourism, Simulation Modeling | Leave a CommentI’ve been hard at work adding more realistic element to TourSim. Some of the highlights include:
1) Seasonality: Certain accommodation and activity types (like camping and boating) are now active only from May 1st to October 1st. All ferries now operate according to their schedules as well.
2) Adjustable length of stay: Slider bars allow the user to set the average length of stay for each of three types of tourist (domestic, American, and international). This lets you see the effect of greater retention of tourists compared to a high turnover. The default setting is 3.8 days per tourist.
3) Tourism growth rate: Again, slider bars let you increase or decrease the total numbers of tourists entering the model. The default settings create a scenario similar to 2007 values.
4) Model view choices and dynamic charts: Select one of six different destinations, and one of three different tourist types. You can also select provincial values to be shown in four charts (total visitation, visitation per day, total expenditures, and average expenditure per tourist).
5) Activity and Accommodation choice charts: dynamic pie charts show the percentage of tourists that choose a particular activity or accommodation. This selection changes depending on your destination selection.
6) Tourist routes: The routes that tourists follow grow dynamically as the model runs. You can also select a zoomed-in view of Cape Breton.
7) Hotel development at Baddeck: You now have a choice to run the model with the existing range of accommodations, or add a seasonal (may-october) hotel at Baddeck.
You can take a look at this most recent model by visiting the Tourism Scenarios section. Since this new version is substantially improved compared to the older versions, I’ve relegated those versions to an ‘archive’ section. Stay tuned for upcoming scenarios that focus on more detailed product development.
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