China's Entry To The Foreign Tourist Flow Network Structure Characteristics Of The Study

The inbound tourism of China experienced a rapid development process from scratch since the reform and opening up30years ago, China has become the third largest inbound tourism destination country in the world in2011.The inbound foreign tourist flow is a significant part of the inbound tourist flow in our country.however, the distribution scope of inbound foreign tourist flow is uneven on the whole country, it is centralized in our country’s east coast regions just like Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, Chang Jiang River Delta and Zhu Jiang River Delta.The inbound foreign tourism development is not balanced betwwen different regions in China at all,which makes the structure of China inbound foreign tourist flow unreasonable.This paper presents a quantitative method to analysis the inbound foreign tourist flow network by using the method of social network analysis and questionnaire investigation.The purposes of this research are:①research the structure and characteristics of inbound foreign tourist flow network by the relevant index of social network analysis,in order to find the positions and main functions of these nodes in this network.②reveal the distribution’s imbalance phenomenon of the inbound foreign tourist flow by the relevant theory of city pairs.③provide theoretical basis for expanding the foreign market of inbound tourism in China.The conclusions of the research are:①Beijing,Shanghai and Guangzhou are the most important three getways for our inbound tourism while Beijing,Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hongkong are the most important four getways for our inbound foreign tourism.②the degree and betweenness of Beijing are the highest in the both two networks,Beijing is the center of the inbound foreign tourist flow network.③The structure of China inbound foreign tourist flow network is "core-periphery",these members can be devided into three levels:the first level are:Macao,Beijing,Chengdu, Guangzhou,Guilin,Hangzhou,Kunming,Xiamen,Shanghai,Suzhou,Xi’an,Hongkong, which are core nodes in the China inbound foreign tourist flow network.The second level are:Dalian,Datong,Jiuzhaigou,Kaifeng,Leshan,Nanjing,Shenzhen and Wuhan, which are the Subprime core nodes of the network.the last level contains the other nodes in the network,which are peripheral nodes in the inbound China foreign tourist flow network.④the characteristics of China inbound foreign tourist flow network structure is: net structure of China inbound foreign tourist flow network is less compact, the spatial distribution of inbound travel is imbalanced.⑤Beijing,Shanghai,Guangzhou and Hongkong are the getways for our inbound forerign tourism,Xi’an and Guilin are the hub nodes, Chengdu is the stopover node for foreign tourists,Beijing,Shanghai and Guangzhou are Multi—function nodes,Hangzhou,Suzhou and Shanghai are the hub nodes in the Chang Jiang River Delta and Guangzhou,Shenzhen,Hongkong are the hub nodes in the Zhujiang River Delta,Kunming is the stopover node in the southwest of China.⑥the distributions of inbound foreign tourist receipts and the inbound foreign tourist flow have very close relationship, the characteristic is:the China inbound foreign tourist flow is centralized in the south and east of China,especially the Changjiang River Delta,Zhujiang River Delta, Link Bohai sea area,Southwest region.At the points of cities, The centralizing of the China inbound foreign tourist flow only happened in several core destination cities such as Beijing,Shanghai,Guangzhou, Xi’an,Hongkong, Chengdu,Guilin,Kunming,Suzhou,Hangzhou.At the points of the inbound foreign tourist flows between cities,the city pairs’shares of Beijing-Xi’an,Shanghai-Suzhou and Suzhou-Shanghai are higher than others,and the dificiency of communication for inbound foreign tourist flow happened in several city pairs such as Xi’an-Guangzhou, Shanghai-Chengdu,Beijing-Kunming,Beijing-Guilin and Kunming-Shanghai.Innovative points of this study are:①the innovation may first put forward the conclusion of four inbound foreign tourim getways,which are Beijing,Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hongkong.②present a classification for the main nodes according to the indicators of nodes.③ascertain the structure of China inbound foreign tourist flow network is "core-periphery" after fitting to "dicrete core-periphery difict model",the devide these nodes into three levels:core nodes, Subprime core nodes and peripheral nodes.