Identifying recreational boater travel pattern using Internet-based map

Spatial factors are fundamental features of the tourism and recreation phenomenon. Scholars are not only interested in tourists’ spatial distribution and movement patterns, but also want to understand the reasons behind tourist movements, travel cost, environmental impacts and social impacts of the movements. However, the systematic studies regarding tourist movement or time budget within are scant, especially at local level. One reason for the lack of research is that the study of spatial behavior in tourism and recreation studies presents significant practical problems in gathering spatial data. Using the Florida Saltwater Fishing Study as an example, this paper offers a method to integrate Internet GIS with on-line survey instruments to collect spatial-referenced data. The survey results suggest that integrating Internet GIS in survey instruments provide a straight-forward, effective, inexpensive, and reliable method of collecting spatially-referenced dat