GIS and touristic itineraries . The case of São Cristóvão , Sergipe , Brazil

The Information Systems (IS) and the Internet have transformed the relations between individuals and social groups. They associated new dimensions to the tourist practices. In this study, the possibilities of use of the GIS/WebGIS by planners and managers of tourist activity, and by the end users of tourist products: tourists were highlighted. This study aims to present a methodological proposal for implementation of Geographic Information System (GIS) for the development of tourist itineraries in accordance with the tourist demand. The tourists can obtain and use specific geographic information before and during their stay at the destination. To develop the itineraries, it was drawn up the inventory of local tourist attractions, as well as the goods and services classification in the surroundings of each attraction. Subsequently, photos and textual information were added to define linear circuits used as a reference for visitor’s tours. With the itineraries publication and their use anchored in explorers (Google Maps, Open Street Maps or Waze), one hopes the procedures and techniques of support based on GIS are executed by tourist destinations, in interactive websites format and/or applications format updated by local managers. And GIS can be consolidated as a basic tool for decision-making, providing a better control of spatial concepts, expanding and intensifying the tourist experiences.


Introduction
Important brands responsible for technological devices production put on the market, quickly, numerous high technical capacity appliances for intense internet access. They are quickly acquired (and discarded for new acquisitions) by the society of consumption.
The tourists' behaviour has changed because of a broad access to information obtained via internet connected dev ices, making them w iser, more demanding and questioner. This new behaviour has also caused changes in touristic practice, a need of new actions and strategies articulation in the planning of touristic spaces were observed, in order to create mechanisms of competitiveness between products and touristic destinations connected to new forms of production and consumption of these spaces.
As follows, some transformations were produced regard to preferences and motivations of touristic consumers, generating a greater segmentation of tourism supply and demand. Therefore, the touristic practice starts to present a complexity in the moment of spatialization of the supply and demand components. This fact opens a range of opportunities for the combined use of specific GIS and destinations publication, and their respective tourist attractions in the worldwide network of computers (internet). This provides georeferenced information to support the planning process and destinations management.
GIS are increasingly considered to be an integral part of solutions and innovative projects, since new technologies based on these systems prov ide autonomy and convenience to tourists during their visits to tourist destinations. They will use mobile devices to access information, through specific websites and/or applications (Marques et al., 2017).
In addition, the geoprocessing technology can help to increase the destination visibility, promoting the development necessary to the touristic potential of several destinations and possible attractions.
According to many scholars, the GIS integration with internet (World Wide Web) enables a new paradigm to draw processes of management and planning in a collaborative way between public managers and users (Masron et al., 2014). Using pathfinders, codes readers, and social networks photographs from tourists' smartphones, it's possible to provide information and data in public domain, the base to share specific itineraries.
As follows, the present study aims to present a methodological proposal for implementation of Geographic Information System (GIS) for the development of tourist itineraries to be used in accordance with the tourist demand. The tourists can obtain and use specific geocoded information before and during their stay at the destination. In addition, it aims to highlight the importance of new technologies in tourism as tools able to articulate information and support the process of planning and managing the territory where the touristic activity will be deployed.
Ramón Morte (1997) With the objective of broaden the GIS use by tourists before the trip and during the stay at the destination by the insertion of new tools in the list of touristic activity planning and management, the proposal is an implementation procedure of a geographic information system (Open GIS) in tourism -to facilitate the attractions and touristic facilities visualization, development and dissemination of touristic itineraries. They must be distinguished by the following processes: Software selection; touristic area delimitation; data collection; data bank creation; mappings preparation; and map making at GIS available online platform.

The expectation is the Geographic Information
System has applicability and scope in other localities in Brazil and the world, in order to supply new forms of tourism planning based on technological innovation to meet new demands of the touristic activity agents and, especially, of tourists. As an example, as highlighted before, is about the historic centre of São Cristóvão ( Figure 1).  The tourism studies should be based on the changes made by the interventions of several agents inducing a touristic demand behaviour. Therefore, it is necessary to think the touristic activity communication and planning mode from the spatialization complexity of this new offer and demand components.

GIS and tourism relationship
In this context, the relevance of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), increasingly considered integral part of solutions and innovative projects to build a database and qualitative attributes to associate mobile applications, internet and geocoding of historic bases (Ladwig, 2012) is highlighted. In Brazil, GIS assume ever greater importance in several areas, including tourism, since it can be used in most activities as a spatial component. The raw material is the spatial information resulting from historical and geographical data inserted into a system that associates the territorial bases.
Based on the possibilities mentioned, it becomes evident that the geographic information system can be converted into a tool to generate support information for the tourism planning and management. It can be used as a mechanism to integrate, visualize and summarize complex and diverse information., Poon (1993), at the beginning of the decade of 1990, has already stated that the touristic activity was strongly influenced by the rapid dissemination of information technologies, because tourism as an activity reinvents itself from the information. Castells Despite consumers as tourists need information to make decisions regarding touristic practice, this information must be distributed treated by suppliers (public or private), in order to present their products and tourist destinations in a more attractive and organized way for prior planning. GIS can embrace and meet the demands from both perspectives.
The manipulation and organization of these information is vital for the locally or regionally touristic activity planning and implementation, since GIS allows space analysis and recognition in the digital environment.
A destination using GIS to disclose its tourism products and services not only has more chances of attracting the potential tourist, but also to increase its stay in the place, in addition to autonomy, flexibility and power of choice and decision. This is because the GIS may have itineraries with different attractions, often poorly disclosed and unknown by the visitor, increasing the supply and profitability with the tourist spending expansion in the destination. Given the above, the use of Geographic Information Systems in the field of tourism brings benefits to the activity. These benefits will be based on accurate information and space analyses aiming to minimize social, environmental, cultural or economic impacts.  to auto-guided itinerary implementation. However, despite the state and local managers recognize its importance, there is still no real proposals or well-defined strategies to convert São Cristóvão in a consolidated touristic destination, and consequently, in the long term, a competitive destination (Santos, 2014).

Even though São Cristóvão is important for
Sergipe tourism, the current maintenance conditions of basic infrastructure and tourism, and even the lack of offers doesn´t help the tourism development.
The previous surveys made in the city through field work reveals some heritage assets of São Cristóvão are ignored by tour guides and receiving agencies at Proposal for dissemination of São Cristóvão as a touristic destination.

Source:
The Authors at Google Earth Pro.
products, making a segment more than a single product. In this study, the priority is the cultural tourism segment, but the emphasis is the need for diversification.
With the experimental application São Cristóvão by Santos et al. (2016), two cultural tours were The cultural and natural attractions will be available in order to attract tourists who use virtual ways to choose destinations and products. In addition to easy access to destination information, visitors can perform autonomously the visitation through the itineraries produced or to format new paths from the information provided and in accordance with the interest and existing demands.

Conclusion
Considering the growing demand of consumers at the time of choice and purchase of tourist destinations and services, GIS can function as a foundation because of its availability on a Web page, a mobile application or even a digital reference system offline.
It becomes an increasingly important tool for dissemination and marketing available for society through Internet. And allow the creation of new services and special products to achieve new market niches and leverage the competitive advantages of locations out of world tourist circuit.
The use of GIS and applications connected to the major search engines of the Internet to disclose a destination tourist products and services not only has more chances of attracting the tourist potential but is also able to increase its permanence in the locality. In addition to reducing the costs of managing However, the study approach is to promote the creation of spatial data infrastructures anchored in the cloud, through WebGIS Cloud to allow greater interaction among the segments of society. The information organization or the possible analyses provided by the interpretation of thematic maps and itineraries can be created and distributed by users.
One believes the initiatives expand the availability of information constituting the first steps to achieve better levels of tourism development. It opens a path to management and planning efficiency and effectiveness for other areas of interest in which the decision-making process in the public governance and even in business are based on spatial information and territorial control.