A location analytics method for the utilisation of geotagged photos in travel marketing decision-making

Location analytics offers statistical analysis of any geo- or spatial data concerning user location. Such analytics can produce useful insights into the attractions of interest to travellers or visitation patterns of a demographic group. Based on these insights, strategic decision-making by travel marketing agents, such as travel package design, may be improved. In this paper, we develop and evaluate an original method of location analytics to analyse travellers' social media data for improving managerial decision support. The method proposes an architectural framework that combines emerging pattern data mining techniques with image processing to identify and process appropriate data content. The design artefact is evaluated through a focus group and a detailed case study of Australian outbound travellers. The proposed method is generic, and can be applied to other specific locations or demographics to provide analytical outcomes useful for strategic decision support.