Flickr photos helping researchers measure global tourism

Vacation images posted to the Flickr photo-sharing site can show where and when people use natural areas for recreation and tourism, U.S. researchers say. Scientists at Stanford University in California said this information can help measure the benefits and value these areas provide to society. Previously, they said, it has been hard to figure out the contribution of natural areas such as parks and beaches to tourism's $6 billion contribution to the world economy. Researchers have tapped into the data collected by social media sites; using information from 1.4 million geo-tagged images in Flickr and the user profiles associated with them they have been able to determine where people were going and where they were coming from. "No one has been able to crack the problem of figuring out visitation rates and values for tourism and recreation without on-site studies until now," researcher Anne Guerry said. Previously, researchers had to rely on local surveys and head counts to get this type of visitation information; using social media to get ideas of where people are visiting and where they are coming from is faster, less expensive and better for looking at changes over time and space, the researchers said.