UF Tourism Analytics group wins “Best Insights” prize at Expedia Group Data Science Competition  

The group, composed by Dr. Andrei Kirilenko, researcher at the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute (EFTI), and two PhD candidates, Shihan (David) Ma and Lijuan Su, from the UF Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management (THEM), provided once again some “Expert Insights for Real Questions” , and proved that the tourism research at the University of Florida is one of the best in the world. With the theme “Socially Responsible and Inclusive Tourism”, the Expedia X ENTER2020 Data Science Competition was part of the ENTER20 conference held at the University of Surrey, UK between January 8 and 10, 2020. The conference takes the lead in eTourism, and is organized by the International Federation for IT and Travel and Tourism (IFITT).  

The goal of the project was to understand how tourism contributes to social inclusion and social responsibility in the US. Groups were challenged to use accommodation data provided by the Expedia Group, as well as the US Census Bureau’s report, and were allowed to use any other relevant supporting data to predict and rank communities that suffered the highest social impact of tourism activities. To better illustrate the influence of the travel and tourism in social inclusion and social responsibility, the group analyzed indicators related to the “Inclusive and Socially Responsible Tourism” development goals established by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). Additionally, general social factors such as economic resources, employment, income, education, equality, crime, health and well-being conditions were analyzed for all counties in the US. The data came from 10 other sources such as FBI crime reports, Labor Statistics, and Survey of Business Owners.  

Based on the social impact assessment and measure of quantity, popularity and quality of tourism accommodations in each county in the US, the group used Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping as a tool to make the data visually understandable. Their results showed that the pattern of counties with the highest accommodation performance was similar to the counties with positive social impacts on local communities. This similarity shows how the accommodation industry positively impact communities, which is also linked to the industry’s characteristic as one of the best in social equality. The travel and tourism industry have a large percentage of female and minorities being small business owners. Additionally. California and Florida were the states where the impact was most visible in the data, congruent with their “sunshine states” characteristics, extensively reliable on tourism and home for a large quantity of hotels and resorts.  

Amusingly, as tourism researchers the team was doing what they love the most: travelling, and had to rely a lot in technology to communicate and overcome the geographic barriers while distant: Dr. Kirilenko had just come back from Chile and was spending some time in Washington, DC when the data was released, on December 30. At the same time, Lijuan was attending a conference in Las Vegas and David was in Florida. The trio had just 7 days to finish the project, so all the collaboration was done remotely. To increase even more the adrenaline for the competition, David’s flight was delayed on the way to the conference changing the plans and forcing Dr. Kirilenko to take the lead in presenting.  The group won the highest prize of the event, U$5,000 while competing with other 5 presenters – the competition had started with 15 groups, but not all of them could finish it on time. Dr. Kirilenko is proud of his students and described the competition as a “Fun experience.” adding that he “always wanted to get practical experience in developing indices taking into account many dimensions of data.” When asked about the prize the group says that although part will be used to cover travel costs, they already have plans to invest in more research. We are sure there will be many more successful researches ahead for them!