1. Big Data and the Visitor
Economy
John Davies, Nesta
5th December 2013
@johnardavies
1

2. The amount of data is increasing
rapidly, in terms of:
• Volume: The quantity of data being
generated
• Variety: Text, Images, Geographic
data
• Frequency: Information being
continuously generated in real-time
2

3. What’s driving the growth in data?
• Websites: Online transactions, browser
cookies, blogs, web-surveys, website text
itself
• Social media: e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Flickr
and LinkedIn
• The checkout: Loyaltymembership
schemes
• Rise of the smart phone
• Sensors becoming cheaper and smaller
3

4. What does more data enable?
• Better understanding of customers’ interests
More targeted marketing, personalisation of
services, cross-selling, merchandising
• Greater feedback from the public
• Operations and supply chain optimisation
More data on this has the potential to lead to
efficiency savings
4

5. Hendon Air
Museum
Wembley
Example of social media data: over
1.8 million geo-tagged photos on
Flickr in London (as seen from
Cyberspace)
Olympic Park
City
Airport
Chiswick
House
Kew
Gardens
The
Dome
London
Wetland
Centre
Greenwich
5

6. Barbican
St Paul’s
Cathedral
Temple
Church
Tate
Modern
Shoreditch,
Spitalfields
& Brick Lane
Lloyds
Building
and
Gherkin
Tower of
London
Waterloo
Station
Imperial
War
Museum
The
Monument
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7. Photography hot spots in central
London
Shoreditch
St Paul’s Cathedral
Piccadilly Circus British Museum
Covent Garden
Spitalfields
and Brick Lane
Trafalgar
Square
South Bank
Buckingham
Palace
Westminster, River
Bridges, London Eye
Tate Modern
Borough Tower of London
Market and Tower Bridge
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8. Tracking changes in photographic
activity over time
Cutty Sark
reopens April
2012
Photographs are those falling within 100m of the centre of the sites
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9. Social media analysis provides a
potential way of seeing:
• Which bits of sites are popular with people
• How people respond to changes in sites
• What customers are interested in outside
the site
• Showing public value, from interest in the
site among non-visitors
• But, limitations, a self-selecting sample and
behaviour may not be representative
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10. Conclusions
• Big Data’s growth will give the Visitor Economy
more information about its customers, and
hence a greater ability to target its offer
• However, obtaining and interpreting the data
may require specialist skills, and important to
respect privacy
• New data sources likely to supplement, and
lead to evolution in, existing data sources such
as surveys
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11. Thanks for
listening
john.davies@nesta.org.uk
@johnardavies
Visualisation of participation levels in cultural and
sporting activities in England, based on the national
11
Taking Part survey