Tourist-recreational impact on the Moscow–St. Petersburg macroregion: a multi-scale assessment using Big Data

The possibilities of using one of the varieties of Big Data – geolocalized photographs – as an objective indicator of the spatial distribution and intensity of tourist and recreational load within the macroregion “From Moscow to St. Petersburg” allocated within the framework of the State Program for Tourism Development are considered. The study uses an original geoinformation model assembled on the basis of freely distributed OpenStreetMap layers and photo points localized in space and time. It allows, on the one hand, to characterize the features of the placement of attractors (natural, cultural) and tourist and recreational infrastructure, on the other – to objectively assess the spatial distribution of the presence of tourists and recreants within the macroregion and describe the specifics of their intra-annual (seasonal) “attraction”. Aggregation of photography points into polygons, taking into account the differentiated clustering distance, made it possible to form areas of seasonal (summer, winter and spring-autumn) stay of tourists, as well as to get an idea of the minimum year-round and maximum episodic areas within the macroregion and individual areas exposed to the potential impact of tourists and recreants. The differences between the minimum and maximum areas of stay of tourists and recreants are proposed to be used to assess the effectiveness of the functioning of the industry in the areas of the macroregion. The obtained spatial areas and patterns of tourists’ presence open up opportunities for an objective assessment of the potential load on natural and cultural heritage sites. The uneven inclusion of both natural and cultural attractors in the sphere of tourism and recreation has been revealed, which leads to a situation where some objects of natural and cultural heritage experience significant industry pressure, while others remain almost or completely unaffected by the presence of tourists and recreants.