How can big data change our practices in regional research in geography?

On the one hand, the increased capacity of storage and calculation allows researchers to handle a huge amount of information; on the other hand, thanks to the evolution of information and communication technologies, our behaviours generate massive amounts of information. This increase in data availability allows new kinds of investigations that change the way to do geography. After a short introduction defining big data, the lecture reflects on the research fields on tourist spatial pattern analysis, where big data considerately change knowledge. Nevertheless, the increase in information raises new concerns going from ethical, economic, and environmental to epistemological issues.