China Inbound Tourism Flow Characteristics And The Role Of The Structure Of The Complex Network Positioning Research

As one of the key issues of study on tourism, tourist flow has drawn attention from scholars at home and abroad. Theoretical research and practice in this area have witnessed fruitful achievements. However, most of existing studies are conducted from the perspective of the attribute data of the research subject and focus on the spatial structure and dynamic factors of tourist flow through multiple regression analysis or by applying structural equation models. Few studies have been done on the phenomenon and network structure of tourist flow from the relation perspective. Through an in-depth analysis of the features and evolutionary trend of the spatial structure, hierarchical organization, and topological structure of inbound tourist flow, from the perspective of structuralism, the thesis constructs a complex network model of tourist flow to explores the roles, functions, and positioning of tourist destinations under the restraint of network structure and the dynamic factors of the existing network structure. On one hand, this thesis helps to enrich the theoretical system of tourism geography, especially the theories and methodology research on tourist flow. On the other hand, this thesis helps management authorities and tourist businesses in their decision-making process by offering references about regional joint development of Chinese inbound tourism, design of tourist products and routes, and control of tourist flow.Attached to Research on Optimization of Network Structure of Chinese Inbound Tourist Flow(NO.41071090) funded by NSFC, this thesis, combining tourism geography theory, complex system theory, and network science theory, adopting social network analysis, fractal analysis, and coupling analysis by using such computer software as SPSS,UCINET and PAJEK, and based upon inbound tourist statistics published by relevant authorities and sample investigation, conducts a systematic research on structural features, evolutionary trend, roles, positioning, and dynamic factors of the complex Chinese inbound tourist flow network, exploring the basic rules of its establishment and development and its inherent mechanism.This thesis reaches several conclusions:(1) Chinese inbound tourist flow network is a typical "small-world" network, which bears the regional characteristic of "East strong-West weak" and the hierarchical characteristic of "Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou centered-other regions bordered". And the network experiences two stages of homogenization and centralization.(2) The spatial structure, hierarchical organization, and character system of Chinese inbound tourist flow network are closely related, which forms an obvious "core-edge" structure. And the characteristics of regional roles appear gradually. The tourist areas of Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Rim and West Delta have emerged and became an important distribution center and transit depot of inbound tourist.(3) The regional economy development level, tourist reception capacity and tourism marketing level are auto-correlated in inbound tourist flow network. The inbound tourists tend to travel in provinces where their GDP, the number of star grade hotels, travel agencies, and travel agents are alike; meanwhile, they choose to travel in provinces where their PGDP, foreign trade volume, foreign trade dependence, air passenger throughput, provincial tourist marketing level and main city marketing level are largely different; nevertheless, the quality of star grade hotels, railway traffic, and total passengers of provinces have less influence on the inbound tourist flow. Besides, provinces whose airlines contact frequently are related closely.The innovations of this study are:(1) The thesis conducts a diachronic analysis on the inbound tourist flow system based on complex network theory; the structural characteristics and evolution laws of inbound tourist flow network are also deeply analyzed from four cognitive perspectives, namely, single point, dyad relations, triad and overall network.(2) The thesis introduces several theories and methods into the tourist flow study, such as the balance theory, three party spectrum analysis methods and hypothesis testing based on models of structural equivalent positioning and roles as well as models of single point relationship. This introduction extends the application of complex network theory in the study of tourist flow.(3) By studying on the topological structure of Chinese inbound tourist flow network, the author points out that the Chinese inbound tourist flow network is a "small world" network featured with understanding hierarchy and core-edge special structure. The tourist destinations which are closely connected share high status and are inclined to bond and form the basic structure of the inbound tourist flow network.