Geodesy and Cartography ISSN 2029-6991 / eISSN 2029-7009 2020 Volume 46 Issue 4: 188–193 https://doi.org/10.3846/gac.2020.11773 UDC 528.77:711 CARTOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF TOURIST ATTRACTIVE REGIONS USING GIS TECHNOLOGIES Viktoriia LEPETIUK * Geoinformation Systems for Territory Management Department, Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, Kyiv, Ukraine Received 16 December 2019; accepted 06 December 2020 Abstract. In this article, I compare cartographic methods that can be used for analyzing tourist attractive regions and ex- plore the possibilities of using GIS technologies for such analysis. I provide a specific methodology of searching for the most attractive tourist regions using Voronoi diagrams and heatmaps. I demonstrate the methodology by applying it to certain types of tourist resources in Chernihiv region of Ukraine. Keywords: tourist destinations, cartographic method, tourist attractive region, GIS technologies, historical and cultural object, QGIS. Introduction authors as Kruzhalin, Mironenko, Zigern-Korn, and Shab- alina (2014), Barliani (2015), Melkonian (2019), Umrik Finding tourist attractive regions is an important task for (2011), Melnik (2009), Shnyirkova and Zhihareva (2016), the development of tourism. Searching for such territories Kulyk and Sossa (2018). is important for tourists, managers of tourism, as well as Yakovenko (2003) notes the insufficiency of the level for central and local executive branches. There are many of modern organization of statistical research in the field specialized cartographic productions in the tourism in- of recreation and tourism. Melnik (2009) writes about dustry that are created for tourists and tour operators. On the need to include databases of specialized digital maps the other hand, there is a certain lack of such productions that characterize recreational facilities into the GIS of the for those who manage the tourism industry. The need of tourism industry. Shnyirkova and Zhihareva (2016) study the latter products is clear since they are useful for the the use of GIS to create a territorial planning scheme in decision making in the tourism industry. tourism using a river basin as an example. Tagan (2009) Modern technologies, especially GIS technologies, can considers the use of cartographic methods in the study of significantly help in the decision making. They can serve territorial recreational inequality. Kulyk and Sossa (2018) as powerful tools in determining tourist attractiveness. explore the possibilities of using heatmaps to study the With their help, for example, a high-quality territorial tourist attractiveness of regions. planning scheme can be developed. A cartographic analy- Nonetheless, a comparison of cartographic methods sis of a territory allows determining the levels of tourism for analyzing the tourist attractiveness of regions has not development in their regions, planning tourism activities been carried out, and therefore it is valuable for the study and improving the management efficiency. These activities of tourist resources of a territory with the aim of develop- are very relevant and important, as the role of tourism in ing tourism. the development of the modern economy is increasing. 2. Methodology and data 1. Analysis of recent publications Tourism as a complex and multi-factorial system consists GIS can be a very powerful tool for analysis and integrated of the following components: a tourism product, a tourism assessment of tourism resources. Many authors consider subject, a tourism participant, an object and an organizer their use to be very promising. The introduction of GIS (Izotova & Matyuhina, 2006). The tourism product is a technologies in the tourism industry is studied by such combination of tourism services and tours. The subject of *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unre- stricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Geodesy and Cartography, 2020, 46(4): 188–193 189 tourism consists of tourism enterprises and organizations There are 37 museums in the region, including three of travel. The tourism participant is a tourist who uses the museums of national status (“Ancient Chernihiv”, “Het- products and services of the tourism system. The tourism man capital”, “Kachanivka”) and one memorial complex object is understood as the entire sphere of all tourism- (“Kruty Heroes Memorial”). By the number of museums, related services (food, accommodation, transport, cul- Chernihiv region ranks third in Ukraine (after Kyiv region tural institutions, natural, cultural, historical, sports, rec- and Poltava region). reational and other facilities). The organizer is a business Chernihiv region today is not among the top tourist company or an individual entrepreneur who plans and regions of the country. Nowadays the most developed and implements tourist events or programs, creates and dis- attractive destinations of Ukraine are Kyiv city and Kyiv tributes a tourism product. The tourism object is the ba- region, Lviv city and Lviv region, Odessa, Crimea, Car- sis of the tourism system. In essence, tourism is based on pathian region. However, Chernihiv region has significant tourist attractions that draw steady tourist flows to their potential for tourism development. These facts make the location. Among all components this element is the most region especially interesting for research. fundamental as without it the need for the development of tourism services disappears. 3. Study area Alternatively the tourism system can be viewed as a system of relations in which tourism enterprises, organi- It is quite difficult to analyze all tourist attractions in zations and regions interact with the external environ- such a large region as Chernihiv region. Open data are ment. This system is closely related to economy, ecology, becoming increasingly popular. The Ukrainian govern- technology, politics and the social system (Pshenichnyih, ment created the unified state open data portal Data.gov. 2006). ua, however, local authorities of Chernihiv region have not The tourist attractiveness of an area is also a complex yet released any information there. Therefore, I use data concept. This concept has a touch of subjectivity and it de- from an internet service OpenStreetMap (OSM). This is pends on a particular category of users of travel services. a non-profit mapping project aimed to create a detailed It takes into account the availability of tourism facilities free of charge geographical map of the world. However, its and tourist infrastructure as well as the ability of a tour use for solving some practical tasks is fairly problematic. operator to properly use the resources of the area, create OSM data may be incomplete, outdated or invalid. In such a positive image of the territory and correctly inform the data there are tourist objects without attributes or with an final consumer, i.e., the tourist. imprecise location. To obtain effective results in the tourism sector, a par- In this study, I analyze methodologies for finding tour- ticularly important aspect of the tour operator’s work is a ist attractive regions, and seek to gain practical experience study of consumer demand. Tour operators are interested in such an analysis. Therefore, I concentrate on studying in knowing what is relevant for a tourist, what target audi- only such tourism objects as historical and cultural ob- ence a tourist product is suitable for, what opportunities jects. In QGIS program, I create a table “Cultural objects” a territory offers (Vishnyakova, 2015). The cartographic with data on the most famous historical and cultural ob- research method in combination with GIS technologies jects of Chernihiv region. In this table, there are 241 such can significantly help in answering these questions. objects from OSM (Figure 1). These objects are included Most methods of finding the tourist attractive regions based on reviews of tourists who visited them. In particu- use a comprehensive assessment of resources. Such an as- lar, among all tourist objects in OSM, I select those objects sessment is also important for a development of a territo- that were highly rated by Google reviewers. It is reason- rial planning scheme. As a part of the assessment, carto- able to assume that they are more popular and more often graphic elements are determined. Among them are basic visited by tourists. These objects are such tourist attrac- elements of the natural and cultural landscape, tourism tions as museums, theaters, sacred objects, parks, estates, resources and infrastructure. palaces, monuments, architectural buildings, viewpoints and others. It is worth noting that not all of these objects Chernihiv region as a tourist destination are represented in the initial database as point objects. Those of them that have the form of polygons, I trans- Because my task is to use cartographic methods to develop form into point objects. Their point locations are set on a methodology for analyzing the tourist attractive regions, the map by the centroids of the polygons. Thus, they are I limit my analysis to a particular region of Ukraine. The also included in the analysis of tourist attractive regions. region of my choice is Chernihiv region. This historic