Behind the Content: Wikipedia Mobile Views and Tourism Activity

This study examines whether open digital traces can provide interpretable, high-frequency indicators of local tourism activity. We argue that the device composition of Wikipedia attention helps distinguish situated information use from remote planning: mobile pageviews are more likely to reflect on-site, contemporaneous information needs, whereas desktop pageviews capture temporally diffuse interest. Linking daily Accor hotel room-nights to Wikipedia city-page traffic for 704 French communes from 2018 to 2025, we find that mobile pageviews are positively associated with same-day hotel demand and dominate desktop traffic in joint specifications. The relationship is stronger in leisure-oriented destinations and in places with higher Wikipedia visibility. A micro-validation using daily attendance at six cultural attractions in Orl{é}ans shows the same pattern: mobile pageviews predict same-day gate counts, while surrounding leads and lags are close to zero. The findings position mobile Wikipedia traffic as a transparent, replicable nowcasting signal for tourism activity.