PurposeThis paper gathers tourism digital footprint from online travel platforms, choosing social network analysis method to learn the structure of destination networks and to probe into the features of tourist flow network structure and flow characteristics in Guilin of China.Design/methodology/approachThe digital footprint of tourists can be applied to study the behaviors and laws of digital footprint. This research contributes to improving the understanding of demand-driven network relationships among tourist attractions in a destination.Findings(1) Yulong River, Yangshuo West Street, Longji Terraced Fields, Silver Rock and Four Lakes are the divergent and agglomerative centers of tourist flow, which are the top tourist attractions for transiting tourists. (2) The core-periphery structure of the network is clearly stratified. More specifically, the core nodes in the network are prominent and the core area of the network has weak interaction with the peripheral area. (3) There are eight cohesive subgroups in the network structure, which contains certain differences in the radiation effects.Originality/valueThis research aims at exploring the spatial network structure characteristics of tourism flows in Guilin by analyzing the online footprints of tourists. It takes a good try to analyze the application of network footprint with the research of tourism flow characteristics, and also provides a theoretical reference for the design of tourist routes and the cooperative marketing among various attractions.