Author(s)

Eleojo Oluwaseun Abubakar^1,2*, Ojochenemi Idoko^1,3, Ogbaje Stephen Ocholi¹

¹Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Kogi State University, Anyigba, Nigeria.
²School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
³Department of Environmental Studies, School of Tourism, Hospitality, and Environmental Management, University Utara.

This study used GIS to analyse various visitation sequence and routes for tourist sites in Lokoja considering multiple scenarios. This was done with a view to determining the most efficient visitation sequence vis-à-vis the routes for optimizing the overall visiting time and distance for the various scenarios considered. The main datasets used were the transportation network and the geographic coordinates of the tourist sites. These were collected through a comprehensive field survey of the study area. The ArcGIS 10.1 Network Analyst Extension was the main software used for this analysis. Five scenarios were considered comprising open and closed tours as well as Sequential Ordering Problems (SOP) and non-SOPs. In addition, for the first and second scenarios, an auxiliary scenario was considered that featured a hypothetical road block on an important arterial route. The fifth scenario considered the implication of a hypothetical flooding of some road sections along the bank of the River Niger. Furthermore, for each scenario, there were two optimization solutions: One that optimized the distance covered in visiting all the tourist sites and the other that optimized the time duration required to complete the site visitations. Optimal visitation sequences were determined by the network analyst as part of the solution of the respective scenarios. Sensitivity analysis was also performed to compare the consequences of time savings vis-à-vis distance savings across the various scenarios. In addition to the detailed navigation map produced for each scenario, a comprehensive navigation description guide was derived. The study reveals that scenarios where the site visitation sequence were optimized saved both time and distance markedly compared to scenarios with a predefined site visitation sequence. In all cases, shorter visitation durations were associated with time-optimized scenarios compared to distance-optimized ones while shorter visitation distances were associated with distance-optimized scenarios as compared to time-optimized scenarios. However, the disparities between distance-optimized and time-optimized scenarios were negligible in some cases. Furthermore, the blockage of an important arterial route (including the flooding of a vulnerable road segment) resulted in a striking increase in the optimal distance and time required to visit all the tourist sites in Lokoja. Overall, the shortest cumulative travel time (of approximately 17.69 minutes) and distance (of 15,897.20 meters) were derived from the second scenario.

Tourism, Tour Planning, GIS, Network Analysis, Nigeria

Abubakar, E. , Idoko, O. and Ocholi, O. (2017) Efficient Tour Planning for Tourist Sites Visitation in Lokoja, Nigeria: A Multi-Scenario Analysis Using GIS. Journal of Geographic Information System, 9, 59-81. doi: 10.4236/jgis.2017.91005.