Secondly, observation of visitors can be used to learn more
about actual behaviour. Traditional techniques for this are monitoring
specific locations, describing behaviour, counting
people. These techniques are limited to a location, lack spatiotemporal
information and don’t provide ‘the full story’.
Thirdly, interviews and diaries can be used to collect the spatiotemporal
component and provide background information, e.g.
on the expectations and experience. Unfortunately, we cannot
fully trust the information in diaries and questionnaires provided
by the participants: our brain has its limitations and people
tend to give the ‘best’ answer.
Tracking technologies have added value to these methods by
delivering accurate and reliable information on the actual activities
of the respondents in space and time: based on space and
time, travelled route, destination(s) and duration of stay and
movement are collected. Last but not least, tracking technologies
directly deliver spatial outcomes, which can easily be presented
on maps or used for other types of static and dynamic visualisations.