Movements inside the country

Why travel abroad when there is so much to see in your own backyard? Sometimes, traveling within your own country satisfies the itch to get away, without the hassle and expense of going abroad. What are the most popular regions? When are they highly visited? We would expect that areas bordering water would see a spike in visits during warmer months, while areas bordering mountain chains may be more frequented during ski season.

To dive deeper in the matter, we carry out case studies in three different countries: the United States, Germany, and France. These countries are very diverse in terms of geography, demographics, and population density. What trends would be common to the three? In what way do they indivually stand out? How do the aforementioned differences play a role?

To have a fine-grained view, we independently consider travel to and from administrative divisions (i.e. states or regions) within each country. We’re interested in knowing who travels where, and which regions are more or less popular during different times of the year.

United States

The US is divided into 50 states and Washington, D.C. We consider travel to and from each of the states and are interested in the partitioning of inter-state travel depending on the origin and destination. The following heatmap illustrates this.

Additionally, it is interesting to spatially visualize the states and their popularity as a destination, as shown on the map below.

The former figure shows the popularity of each state depending on the origin of its visitors. The latter only shows the popularity of each destination state, independently of tourists’ home states.

We see that the US has a few tourist hubs: California, Texas, Florida and New York. Namely, we can note the following:

• California is a very popular destination for most regions of the country
• In winter, Texas receives a lot of visitors, especially from Colorado and California: this is probably due to the warmer climate in the state. Also, some people travel to Florida from up North, to escape the cold northern weather.
• In the spring, there is an overall increase in travel. This trend intensifies during the summer, and dies down in autumn.

More generally, we observe travel between neighboring states: this is expected as people can commute across state borders, and because some cities have suburbs crossing state boundaries.

Germany

Germany is divided into 16 regions called Bundesländer. Just like for the United States, we want to analyse inter-state movement in the country. Despite not being as large a country as the United States, Germany has several major cities and regions (e.g. Munich in Bayern, Frankfurt in Hessen, Stuttgart in Baden, the city and state of Berlin) that are densly populated. We expect these hubs to be the center of activity.

And now the map:

There is no single region that dominates, as opposed to the US where a few main states are under the spotlight. Berlin tends to receive a lot of visitors as it is the capital city. Naturally, most traveling takes place between neighboring states: this might be due to people living in one and commuting to another. Finally, Bayern receives the highest amount of visitors during autumn. Coincidence? 🍺. We think not. 🍻!

France

Ask any Parisian and they’ll tell you there are two regions in the country: Paris, and the rest. This is especially apparent in our data (see heatmap), as Parisians take up a vast majority of the country’s check-ins. What’s more, those who don’t come from Paris mostly tend to visit… you guessed it, Paris!

Because of the particularity mentionned above, we did something a bit different when we plotted the data on the map of France. What we see represents how often people travel from Paris’ region, Île-de-France, to other regions in the country.

A few observations on travel trends from Île-de-France users:

• During the winter, the most visited regions are Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and Occitanie. These two regions border the Alps and the Pyrenees respectively. They are popular destinations, thanks to the booming skiing industry in the season.
• During spring, there is generally little travel. Notable spikes can be noticed in Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Pays de la Loire, regions that might be popular due to their proximity to the Atlantic coast.
• In summer, we notice a huge spike in check-ins across the country, but especially in the south. Summer is when people tend to take longer holidays and travel far from home. The south is a popular destination, thanks to its nice beaches, sunny weather, and Mediterranean culture.
• In autumn, users travel less. However, we see an influx of visitors to Normandie (which is also visible in spring): cities like Deauville and le Havre are located. They have nice beaches and are really close to Paris, hence their popularity.

On the next one!