Tourism Walkability Index: A Data-Driven Tool for Tourism Urban Planning

Historic centers consistently emerge as the most walkable areas for tourists, while peripheral zones lag behind, according to a new Tourism Walkability Index (TWI). This data-driven tool, designed specifically for tourist mobility, reveals micro-scale contrasts in urban environments that broader neighborhood metrics often obscure. The TWI integrates accessibility to cultural points of interest, public transport systems, and comfort conditions shaped by infrastructure and environmental quality. Applied across four northern Portuguese cities—Porto, Braga, Guimarães, and Vila Real—the index demonstrates its robustness using open data alone, offering actionable insights for tourism planning and sustainable mobility management.

Areosa, I., Jardim, B., Barnabé, S., & De Castro Neto, M. (2026). Tourism Walkability Index: A Data-Driven Tool for Tourism Urban Planning. International Conference on Tourism Research, 9(1), 663–673. https://doi.org/10.34190/ictr.9.1.4483