INVESTIGATION OF GIS BASED MOBILE ROUTE PLANNING – NAVIGATION APPLICATIONS FOR TOURISM ACTIVITIES

Abstract. Mobile devices can be used in many areas such as shopping, entertainment and education. The number of mobile applications which provides information about a city or region, helps to find route by navigation and makes accommodation plans with food and beverage suggestions, is also increasing. Since these devices are portable and have access to internet, they emerges as a new and important potential for tourism sector. In particular, the increase in the use of route planning and navigation applications, which are location based services within the scope of Geographic Information Systems, has also affected the tourism sector. Which route planning and navigation applications are used extensively by tour operators, tourist guides and individual visitors ? What are the strengths and weaknesses about these applications? Answers to such questions were sought in this study.