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The rise of digital footprints has created a number of promises and expectations for the study of territorial dynamics, particularly those of tourist cities. These footprints would make the observation of visitors' spatial practices possible and make up for the lack of information on these practices at an urban scale. Thus, many studies use data from social networks to study the touristic space at different geographical scales. These studies provide several types of visualisations based on this data, thus making it possible to represent and show a supposedly new touristic space-time-from the heat map to the dashboard, the digital footprints are displayed as processed, aggregated, calculated and smoothed. All these transformations-resulting from algorithmic black boxes that do not allow a precise understanding of the methodologies (often complex and approximate)-are often not very transparent. Consequently, the technicality and opacity of this data make necessary the development of critical approaches that allow the deconstruction of these new mapping registers. Based on data collected on a widely used social network, Instagram, we wish to question digital footprints as a potential tool to observe tourist practices, by going back through the data genealogy, from the map to the footprint. Our approach consists of going back to the initial data and their associated metadata, in order to explore two fundamental dimensions, conditions prerequisite for more complex explorations: time and space. Therefore, we collected a corpus of metadata from photographs published on Instagram between 2016 and 2018 in Biarritz, France, which we analyse following these two axes. Through this exploratory study, we will demonstrate that this data, though very rich, presents a certain number of limits, whether in terms of access to the data itself or its spatiotemporal precision.

The beach, a public space at the interface between land and sea, is heavily used for tourism and leisure practices, especially during the summer. This attraction generates intensive use of the space and local authorities require data to improve management of their local beaches. In this context, we have analysed beaches as tourism and leisure practice areas to understand their organizations and functioning. This work, based on a study of the Pertuis Charentais beaches on the French Atlantic coast, makes it possible to identify those elements which influence the filling dynamics of these spaces. This approach formalizes a model to facilitate beach management. To demonstrate the model building process, this presentation is organized into three parts. Firstly, we study beach attendance forms to understand the role of accessibility and physical constraints. Secondly, we discuss the filling process in its territoriality and its spatiotemporal dynamics. Thirdly, we study the beachgoers' preferences and their environmental perception. We show how the spatial behaviours of beachgoers are determined by residence status, practices, and environmental sensitivity. These observations are used to calibrate the filling model that is presented in its conceptual dimension.

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