This post is part of a small series of non-university studies (guest posts from enlightened amateurs) on Roumazeilles.net. So, we sometimes welcome a few authors whose works may be of a wider interest or simply original.

The work below has been written by Marion Jonchères, in November 2020.

1. Introduction: Business understanding, target audience

Before Covid-19, tourists used to travel all over the world very easily. In a post-Covid environment, they will hopefully be able to resume traveling. They may however have different expectations and change the way they travel. Maybe they will no more rush to foreign cities, spend a few days running from one interest point to another and come back? Maybe they will take time to relax, enjoy, listen to birds and breathe cleaner air in gardens, parks and trails? Wouldn’t it be nice for a travel agency to be able to recommend a city trip based on what their clients truly expect?

With a bit of data science, travel agencies can get an overview of what some well-known European cities have to offer to visitors. These cities are famous for their historical buildings and their shopping streets, but what can they also offer to their clients in terms of ‘ecotourism’ or ‘green travel’? We’ll try to compare them so that travel agencies can recommend the right trip to their clients, depending on their wishes. And, once they decide, the travel agencies would be able to deliver maps of the chosen city with recommendation of where to go depending on what visitors want to experience.

Let’s have a look at two cities in Southern Europe (Rome and Barcelona) and two cities a few degrees further North (Paris and London). These cities are amongst the top destinations for tourism in Europe, with London ranking 1^st, Paris 2^nd, Rome 5^th and Barcelona 8^th (source: Statista, 2018 data).

2. Data strategy

We quickly notice that cities are very different in size from one another. As we assume most tourists are interested in spending time between cultural locations, shopping tours, sightseeing, exploring museums or getting fresh air in green spaces, we chose to focus on the most active and richest part of cities i.e. downtown areas. This will lead us to scan the Inner London (330 km² already, as opposed to Greater London which is more like 1600km²!) and Paris ‘intra-muros’ (meaning without suburbs, for a total of c. 87 km²). Barcelona is similar to Paris in size whereas Rome is much larger (c. 1300km²) and we’ll have to stick to central districts.

As far as Paris is concerned, we include the two public parks respectively West and East of the central city. These parks are actually owned by Paris city but are often excluded from statistics as nobody lives there.

Our primary purpose being a comparative analysis, we chose to stick to the borough level and not adopt a thinner split. A thinner split would have given a better analysis of each city on its own, but might have given too many details and no trend in a comparative exercise.

Data is available from different websites. Wikipedia provides the list of their boroughs. We can find GPS coordinates with Geocoder. We can start working on the four databases we come up with, one per city (table 1).

For each city, we then retrieve FourSquare data relative to venues. Using Four Square clearly limits the view we’ll have of what is available in the city:

• FourSquare does not scan all available venues: It’s not a phone book!
• FourSquare does not scan venues in different cities in a consistent manner, depending on whether the application exists in the local language, whether FourSquare members usually travel there or not. As FourSquare is an American company, it probably has more venues in North America than in Europe. When comparing cities, we will be vigilant and weigh the number of venues vs. total of available venues for each city.

However, the advantage of FourSquare is that posted venues will be open to most and will also be suitable for visitors.

We end up this data acquisition phase with four new databases including FourSquare venues, like the Paris one below (5 first rows only):

At some point, we have decided to 1/ not pay too much attention to hotels, coffee shops… which are fairly common in all touristic destinations, and 2/ regroup several venues under different themes, for simplification purpose and for a better understanding of the final results, e.g.:

• HISTORY regroups historic sites, monuments / landmarks, plazas, churches, fountains;
• CULTURAL LIFE includes art museums, art galleries, theaters, concert halls, bookstores;
• GASTRONOMY is an elegant name for… local specialty food or drink, e.g. tapas restaurant in Barcelona, wine bar in Paris, pub / beer bar in London;
• ECOTOURISM is based on number of parks, gardens, trails.

3. Methodology

We have proceeded in two steps: First, a city-by-city analysis (one after another) with the same stages for each; and, second, an analysis of a merged database to make comparisons. Please, note that all results are presented in the chapter 4.

 3.1. City-by-city analysis

We first looked at what venues were the most widely available in the city based on all venues retrieved from FourSquare (as seen in table 2 supra).

• WordCloud analysis: We extracted text from the VenueCategory column and applied the word_cloud package. As bigger and bolder words being the more preeminent in the text, this means these venues are amongst the most common;

• Counting / getting the occurrence of each individual venue. We quickly pointed out a few very common venues, often quite different from one city to another. We managed to visualize this with Matplotlib bar charts. 

Then, we looked at what venues were the appreciated most in the city.

• We sorted out the database to get the 10 most common venues per borough.
• In some cases, the most common / i.e. appreciated venues were not the most widely available.

We afterwards tried to find out whether boroughs were similar or not, and what this similarity consisted of. We then performed a clustering analysis with KMeans.

Eventually, we use Folium maps to better show the clusters.

 3.2. Merged analysis

We conducted another clustering analysis on the merged dataframe, to see whether there were boroughs from different cities in a same cluster. For example, if a client wants to visit historic sites, will the travel agent be able to tell him/her: “Yes for sure! You can go to such borough in Rome, or to the borough X in Barcelona”.

We finally weighted the most common venues vs. total venues for each city (previously gathered under the four themes mentioned supra – History, gastronomy, cultural life, ecotourism) and compared the four cities with a Matplotlib bar chart. This will allow the travel agent to tell his client: “You should probably prefer Paris (borough Y) because this is the city for history lovers!”

4. Results

4.1. ROME

Rome’s most widely available venues can be visualized as follows:

Rome’s most common venues can also be visualized as follows:

Ranking of available venues is confirmed by preferred venues with gastronomy coming up as the most popular activity in 2/3 of the boroughs:

• In 6 out of 9 boroughs, at least 2 out of the 3 top venues are ice-cream shops or pizza places / Italian restaurants.
• Rome ice-creams must be some of the best in Europe as ice-cream shops are amongst the top 5 venues in all but one borough, and the top venue in 2 boroughs! Or is it because it is a rather hot city?
• Pizzas come as the second preferred dish.

Ecotourism is very limited, with a park between the 3^rd and the 10^th most common venues in 7 out of the 9 boroughs.

If you go to Rome, don’t miss monuments / landmarks: Rome is a great city for History lovers to hang around. Go to Historical centre or Parioli Nomentano (in red cluster 0 below), where 6 to 7 amongst the 10 most common venues are historical sites.

Monte Sacro (light green on the map below, North East of the city) is probably the place to eat or have a cup of coffee; there is little visiting there but a pleasant park (3^rd most common venue) to get a rest while sipping an ice-cream.

Boroughs of cluster 1 (in purple below, south-east of the city) is probably the living area for residents with venues like tennis courts or gyms.

4.2. PARIS

Paris’ most widely available venues can be visualized as follows:

Paris’ most common venues can also be visualized as follows:

Paris is another great destination for history lovers with plenty of plazas, historic sites and some monuments. Second available venue category is cultural life (art galleries and museums, bookstores) while gastronomy is also widely available (meaning French restaurants & wine bars). No wonder, as the country as a whole is famous worldwide for its cuisine and its wine.

The analysis of most common venues vs. all available venues emphasizes the specificities of the city: Visitors plebiscite history, cultural and gastronomy venues.

Clusters 0 and 2 seem pretty close as areas for tourists with hotels / plazas / art museums and bookstores as preferred venues, meaning history and cultural life. The two themes are however widely spread in pretty much all the city: even if we requested 5 clusters, the whole city (excluding the two woods) is split into three clusters only. Cluster 1 and 3, with only one borough in each, are pretty close as well as including the large public parks, train station and supermarket: This is the ‘greenest’ part of Paris. Cluster 4 in blue is more related to restaurants, cocktail bars and coffee shops.

4.3.  LONDON

London’s most widely available venues can be visualized as follows:

London’s most common venues can also be visualized as follows:

London seems to be a more diversified city with only two venues emerging as much more widely available than others: Ecotourism (parks, gardens) and beer-related economy (brewery, beer bars, pubs)!  We are tempted to say that there is no gastronomy per se in London, and visitors ignore specific dishes or English cooking tradition; FourSquare does not report “English restaurants”, but the city is clearly open to foreign cooking e.g. Indian restaurants, Italian restaurants or Asian-style foodstores. Cultural life is somewhat present with art galleries and theaters, plus some bookstores.

Cluster 2 (light blue on the map below) seems to be the greenest part of London, together with cluster 4 ( orange bubbles below) which is also a good place for drinking bear in a pub, as is cluster 1 (purple bubbles below). There is no striking difference between the other clusters.

4.4.  BARCELONA

Barcelona’s most widely available venues can be visualized as follows:

Barcelona’s most common venues can also be visualized as follows:

History is somewhat present with lots of plazas and some historic sites, spread all over the city, but the most widely available activity in Barcelona relates to gastronomy, namely tapas and wine bars / pubs. This is also definitely the most common / the most preferred as tapas / Spanish restaurants come as the preferred activity in half of the boroughs (and second in four other boroughs), whereas wine bars come as most preferred activity in two boroughs.

Ecotourism is about the same as in Rome, with some green areas spread all over the city.

Clustering analysis has limited interest but to show there is no clear specificity of any borough.

4.5.  MERGED RESULTS / COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

We tried to compare the four cities to see whether there was a chance to get a clear view on historic boroughs, or cultural boroughs, or green boroughs. We requested 8 then 7 clusters, and all we got was the four cities split in two clusters each. Only the two ‘historic’ boroughs of Rome were placed in the same cluster than Parisian boroughs when we requested 7 clusters (instead of 8).

We tried again with 4 clusters, to ‘force’ the algorithm to put boroughs from different cities in the same clusters. We got Barcelona and London in the same cluster, Rome in a second cluster except for two ‘historic boroughs’ which were with Paris in a third quarter. The two Paris public parks were in a fourth cluster.

To understand this, let’s visualize the specificities of the cities on a bar chart, based on the 10 most preferred venues for all boroughs of each city:

Paris and London have a more balanced range of preferred activities than Barcelona and Rome. But for London, and Barcelona to a lesser extent, the sum of the four percentages is far lower than for Paris and Rome, meaning the very few specific items highlighted in the previous pages explain less of what tourists like in London and Barcelona (respectively 26% and 45%). Is it because tourists are more diverse in these cities?

If we build the same chart with available venues and compare it with the chart above (most preferred), we find out that in some cases, preferences of tourists “exaggerate” the available specifics:

• Rome has low availability of cultural life, and this is almost neglected by tourists; Same for historic venues / monuments in London;
• Paris has mid-level ecotourism but tourists make it look like more important in relative terms; Same for green areas in Paris and Rome, and culture and gastronomy Paris and Barcelona.

5. Discussion

Bar chart above makes us think tourists know what they want when they go to one city or another. They know what to expect and they enjoy it when on site. Further research with FourSquare data may allow determining whether visitors to a single city have a similar profile (Age, nationality, occupation?)

Indeed, our comparison could be easily extended to any city for which FourSquare have venues. It would be interesting to compare European cities with cities from other continents, e.g. North America and Asia. This would help put into perspective what tourists like about European cities vs. other parts of the world.

One should not conclude too quickly about the touristic offer of our cities. The analysis comes from FourSquare users’ posts, which may differ from another application’s users or from tourists that don’t use applications at all. The coverage of FourSquare may also differ from one country to another, as we saw in the total number of venues.

6. Conclusion

It seems that the typical day of a FourSquare tourist is as follows:

• visit historic sites then go for a pizza (and an ice-cream!) in Rome,
• visit plazas and museums, then enjoy the French cuisine and wine in Paris,
• spend a day in a park, then have a beer in a pub before going to the theater in London,
• enjoy a day in a park and have tapas for a meal in Barcelona.

Travel agencies are able to advise their clients on a trip destination based on what they want to experience. Agencies can also advise them on which part of the city they should visit. Agencies can even give them a map with proposed venues, based once again on their expectations.

Have a happy journey!

Appendix

All in all, we can say that we found what we were looking for since we came back with many animal pictures. I will present here a small selection in the coming days. You can expect:

• hummingbirds
• monkeys
• birds
• reptiles and toads
• sloths
• flowers
• tucans
• paradise birds (or quetzal)
• some more birds
• and a lot more…

Furthermore, ticos (costa-rican people) were very nice and the country is quite marvelous. The hot temperature from the end of the dry season (but also mating and flowering season) is admittedly pleasant (if you have a hat).

Finally, the result was quite positive (we’ll speak later of the negative parts of this trip; But you’ll have to wait for the detail report coming later here).

But shouldn’t the first question be: “Does it work?”

A German TV channel decided to ask the question and invited a leading company in this field for a demonstration of such a machine in a TV studio under the surveillance of their best expert while submitting a “would-be terrorist” to a body scan.

You don’t need to speak German to understand what happened: All goes down the drain when the machine sees the wireless microphone box at the belt of the “guinea pig”, but -most important- does not detect the presence of several components of chemical products that will be used to manufacture a powerful explosive (very similar to what happened on last Christmas, wouldn’t you say?)

Technology failed here.

You really want to install those expensive gizmos in airports for the sake of theatrical security?

And don’t make me believe that this was unfair: No airport can hope to keep the manufacturer expert in front of the machine to analyze the images… The reality would be much worse. The fact that the “victim” did his best to hide the chemical products was just representative of what a determined terrorist would be trying with a real bomb.

Back from a few days of photo trip to Nepal, I feel it is time to share with you some of this astonishing experience organized by Amawanda and guided by Alain Pons.

I am more or less a wildlife photographer attracted to the African wide-open spaces. But I had been attracted mostly by the presence of a seasoned pro photographer (Alain Pons) assisted by a very serious organization (I had been able to appreciate them in a previous trip to Kenya in 2008). I had also noticed that costs were relatively moderate (taking into account that this is a wildlife trip – which is often very expensive) including -we could check this later on location- a significant share reserved for local actions for development and nature protection in full coordination with the local structures and the local wildlife organizations.

The flight to Kathmandu was without surprise on Qatar, despite the long night stop in Doha airport where the only Duty Free shop cannot be considered as a commendable tourist spot (but they have a nice stock of alcohol or cigarettes for those who prefer to prepare themselves for later needs).

The Kathmandu-Bardia journey requires about 20 hours of bus or car. The stops provided in the program are a good way to break the inevitable monotony. A faster plane journey would be possible (it is included on the way back) but it would be a pity to avoid the view in the valleys and from the mountain roads out of Pokhara.

All along this journey, I will try to make a few recommendations about what a photographer might find more interesting to stop for.

Recommendations in Kathmandu (Nepali: काठमाडौं, काठमान्डु, nepâlbhâsa: यें)

Take a flight from the Nepal capital city to the Everest and shoot a panoramic view of the mountain range from the cabin window (beware of color correction). More advice in my article about plane photo.

You should try the visit of the old city but instead of the going from temple to temple or shooting all shades of colors, stop to collect images of the many handicraft shops open on the streets (metal work, barber, potter, cloth and dressmaker, etc.)

Recommendations in Pokhara (Nepali: पोखरा)

The Annapurna range panorama from Sarangkot (an elevated viewpoint at 1600m), if the weather is clear, but you must arrive well before the sun rise to avoid traffic jams (yes, really).

The Lakeside/Baidam street (near Phewa Lake) could be considered a honey pot for tourists where price negotiation must be mastered but some other active streets could attract your attention, and even the lake shore offers some interesting perspectives at the end of the day.

The road to the South is marvelous in the morning light. You will be able to find paddy fields and various scenes of the daily life in step with the seasons. Then, crossing the deep valleys of the Tinaau and the Adhikhola will offer you vertiginous perspectives (if you do not travel through them too early or too late, light having some hard time diving so deep).

Recommendations in Lumbinī (Sanskrit: लुम्बिनी, “the lovely”)

If you want to spend some time among the temples of this renowned Buddhist pilgrimage, don’t wait. But be prepared for the most colorful experience. It may be interesting, but you’d rather spend some time playing with the loungtas (lungtas) or « wind horses », those prayer flags floating in the wind and the light.

The Sarus cranes which make some of the city’s wildlife fame are difficult to approach out of the “international” temple, where they are domesticated, is still being built and is not open to the general public [Ed. written in 2009]. The digiscoper will feel more at ease with her very long focal lens.

The road with their heavy traffic could also be a reason to stop and collect pictures of the joyful and colorful displays of the many vehicles (bus, trucks and even some cars or taxis).

Recommendations in Bardia

You must not miss the Friday market in Thakurdwara and the farms all around host very poor people but men and women smiling and welcoming: Everybody will return your hello ( “Namaste !” in Nepalese), sometimes with a “Bye bye!” often resounding with fun but always pleasant.

Rafting down the Karnali river is done without even thinking about it (a few splashes at most) and allows to go near the animals from a different side. This is particularly true for the birds if you are not too far from the shores (to be discussed in advance for an easier journey). The stops for safari walks a few yards from the river break the monotony (think about 2 days to go from the Chisapani bridge back to Thakurdwara, along the full width of the Bardia National Park).

Notice: If you use the services of the Racy Shade Resort or of Christophe Bouchoux, the surprise at the mid-journey camp in Gola will long stay in your memory as a great time.

On the opposite, the safari on elephant back is not easy to recommend to photographers: If more than 2 people share an elephant, the photographers have a hard time (don’t count on more than 200mm or 300mm focal length to compensate for the very limited stability of the animal and the uselessness of a monopod; A wide-angle lens or a 50mm could also serve for landscape shots, but switching lenses is very perilous: Take a second camera well strapped around your neck). Nevertheless, the elephant will go where no road vehicle can even dream of driving into.

I only tried one lodge, the Racy Shade Resort booked by Amawanda for this safari, among the dozen offered on location. It is very correct even if the warm water is only available upon request by the tub. But the beds are very hard and will only attract the most tired customers. The others will try not to move too much during the night…

However, comparing with all other countries, it is quite unusual to find a local guide organization as well integrated into the local life and as directly involved in the common development of the park and the local community. This is exceptionnaly perceptible as a large part of the revenues is used in local actions for a coordinated development of the National Park and the surrounding villages. This is so unusual that it must be commended. Everything tells me that it is not only a marketing move but a a daily priority for the whole team.

Inside the Racy Shade Resort, birds and butterflies are very present because of the trees, the flowers of the central patio and the rice paddies all around: woodpeckers, peaks, drongos, tits, etc. The digiscoping photographers will find find pleasure without traveling further but also can cross the little river in front of the resort to enter the Community Forest. I would recommend to keep a camera handy to easily satisfy a few simple pleasures. I will publish here some of my images in the coming days.

Conclusion

The low point of this photo travel has been the near total lack of wildlife during the “safari” tours. I did not see more exotic animals than in most West European forests. But the weather conditions of 2009 (a very long monsoon followed by dramatic storms) had pushed all animals under cover and even deeply transformed the topology (shores pushed by the violence of the bulging rivers) to a point where wildlife observations were rendered improbable despite the best efforts of the guides. So, we learned that the best time period would have rather been March-April to take advantage of dryer conditions susceptible to push animals back to the rivers. For what I could observe, the recent rain storms were a real roadblock for the wildlife lover and photographer.

On the contrary, the innumerable animal footsteps we saw on the ground confirm the original density of the local wildlife population… So, be prepared to shoot less shy animals: Spiders maybe, dragonflies for sure (Waiting for one-horned rhinoceros at a lake side, you can easily shoot dragonflies and damselflies – macro-photography with a 400mm tele-lens was definitely not something I had found in the initial program).

In the end, I have found deep pleasure to being in a country so far from my own culture, Nepal, which felt very attractive because you find there the colors of India with the fun of shooting pictures of people who accept the photographer, do not take poses nor hide, but who share many things with you. The back LCD screen of our digital photo cameras become an intense source of shared pleasure with children as well as adults.

But when you let your camera at your neck, it is also time for sharing with men and women very open if you know how to smile and how not to jump in. Walking alone (or in a group of 2 or 3) is even easier because there is nearly no violence and insecurity (inside and outside the cities, Nepalese people are never aggressive and will often try to exchange with you even when you do not have many words in common).

I think it is going to support me when I go to Nepal (Bardia National Park) in next October. With Alain Pons and Amawanda.