Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Vol. XX, No. X, Month 201X, 1–27 DOI: h t t p s : / / do i . o r g / 10.1177/1096348019889121 © The Author(s) 2019 1 EXPLORATION OF TOURIST ACTIVITIES IN URBAN DESTINATION USING VENUE CHECK-IN DATA Huy Quan Vu Deakin University Jian Ming Luo City University of Macau Gang Li Deakin University Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences Rob Law The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Understanding the differences and similarities in the activities of tourists from various cultures is important for tourism managers to develop appropriate plans and strategies that could support urban tourism marketing and managements. However, tourism managers still face challenges in obtaining such understanding because the traditional approach of data collection, which relies on survey and questionnaires, is incapable of capturing tourist activities at a large scale. In this article, we present a method for the study of tourist activities based on a new type of data, venue check-ins. The effectiveness of the presented approach is demonstrated through a case study of a major tourism country, France. Analysis based on a large-scale data set from 19 tourism cities in France reveals interesting differences and similarities in the activities of tourists from 14 markets (countries). Valuable insights are provided for various urban tourism applications. KEYWORDS: urban tourism; venue check-in; multicultural; Foursquare; France INTRODUCTION Urban tourism refers to various tourism activities in which a city is the main place of interest and visiting the city is the main purpose of the trip (Ashworth 889121JHT XX X 10.1177/1096348019889121Journal of Hospitality & Tourism ResearchVu et al. / Exploration of Tourist Activities in Urban Destination research-article 2019 Authors’ Note: The work described in this article was supported by a research grant funded by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the research fund for Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Deakin University ASL 2019 fund, and partially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No: 71974010. The work was completed when G. Li was on ASL in Chinese Academy of Sciences.