The changes in the geographical patterns of China’s tourism in 1978-2018: Characteristics and underlying factors

doi:10.1007/s11442-020-1739-2

Abstract

Abstract:

Since the reform and opening-up policy launched in 1978, the number of inbound tourists increased from 1.8 million in 1978 to 139.5 million in 2017, and that of domestic tourists increased from 344 million in 1991 to 5 billion in 2017. This article conducts research on how the geographical pattern of China’s tourism has evolved in the last four decades on the national-scale and regional-scale, for rare studies before could focus on such an extended date and utilize inbound and domestic tourism data simultaneously. Grounded on viable datasets and multiple vibrant data analysis approaches (including the Gini coefficient, primacy index analysis, hot spot analysis and Pearson correlation analysis), this article unpacks triple vital realities. (1) The overall geographical pattern of China’s tourism development can arguably summarize as “high in the eastern and low in the western part, high in the southern and low in the northern part.” Meanwhile, China’s inbound tourism has long shown a pattern of polarized distribution; While, domestic tourism has experienced a shift from the polarized distribution to the equilibrium distribution. (2) According to the features and characteristics, China's tourism development can be divided into four stages. They are precisely the initial modern tourism stage (1978-1988), the domestic tourism cultivating stage (1989-1996), the rapid development stage (1997-2007) and the new normal stage (2008-present). (3) This article also identified multiple factors underlying the inbound and domestic tourism development in China, including policies, management systems, tourism demand, tourist attractions, economic level, consumption level, industrial development, investment status, traffic conditions, accommodation services, intermediary services and degree of openness.

Key words: reform and opening-up, tourism development, spatial pattern, development stage, influencing factor, China

ZHANG Chengming, WENG Shixiu, BAO Jigang. The changes in the geographical patterns of China’s tourism in 1978-2018: Characteristics and underlying factors[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2020, 30(3): 487-507.

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Factors	Variables	Domestic tourists	Inbound tourists
Economic level	GDP	0.996**	0.809**
Consumption level	Per capita GDP	0.995**	0.815**
Consumption level	Total retail sales of social commodities	0.998**	0.769**
Industrial development	Third industry proportion	0.922**	0.880**
Industrial development	Third industry output value	0.998**	0.775**
Investment status	Investment in fixed assets	0.996**	0.738**
Traffic conditions	Railway mileage	0.991**	0.810**
	Road mileage	0.909**	0.928**
	Civil aviation domestic routes	0.985**	0.752**
	Civil aviation international routes	0.967*	0.783**
	Civilian passenger vehicle	0.994**	0.722**
Accommodation services	Number of rooms in star hotels	0.754**	0.984**
Intermediary services	Travel agency scale	0.918**	0.959**
Degree of openness	Use of foreign capital	0.515**	0.817**
Degree of openness	Import and export volume	0.938**	0.903**

Factors	Variables	Domestic tourists	Inbound tourists
Tourist attractions	Scenic spots	0.621**	0.573**
Tourist attractions	High-grade scenic spots	0.721**	0.201
Economic level	Provincial GDP	0.693**	0.594**
Consumption level	Per capita GDP	0.080	0.232
Industrial development	Tertiary industry income	0.627**	0.637**
Investment status	Investment in fixed assets	0.832**	0.263
Accommodation services	Number of accommodations	0.650**	0.730**
Accommodation services	Number of restaurants	0.676**	0.635**
Intermediary services	Total number of travel agents	0.637**	0.461**
Traffic conditions	Number of private cars	0.707**	0.507**
	Railway passenger volume	0.650**	0.645**
	Highway passenger volume	0.638**	0.321
	Civil aviation passenger volume	0.136	0.808**
Degree of openness	Use of foreign capital	0.516**	0.529**
Degree of openness	Import and export volume	0.279	0.871**

Province	IT/million	Province	TFE/$billion	Province	DT/million	Province	DTI/￥billion
Guangdong	36.48	Guangdong	19.65	Shandong	763.74	Jiangsu	1130.75
Shanghai	8.73	Zhejiang	8.28	Jiangsu	742.87	Guangdong	1066.70
Fujian	6.92	Fujian	7.59	Guizhou	740.00	Sichuan	882.54
Yunnan	6.68	Shanghai	6.81	Sichuan	670.00	Zhejiang	871.72
Zhejiang	5.89	Beijing	5.12	Henan	662.04	Shandong	842.07

Inbound tourists		Tourism foreign exchange		Domestic tourists		Domestic tourism income
Province	Growth ratio	Province	Growth ratio	Province	Growth ratio	Province	Growth ratio
Tianjin	600%	Ningxia	1396%	Xizang	1060%	Xizang	1697%
Tibet	405%	Xinjiang	676%	Gansu	863%	Jiangxi	1088%
Sichuan	381%	Sichuan	574%	Guizhou	808%	Gansu	1057%
Hunan	354%	Xizang	536%	Jiangxi	614%	Hebei	1037%
Ningxia	353%	Anhui	431%	Anhui	530%	Yunnan	1024%