Three Port Of Entry Of Foreign Tourist Flow Geographic Distribution And Network Characteristics Comparative Study

Since the adoption of reform and opening-up, Chinese inbound tourism industry develops rapidly. Because there are abundant tourism resources and powerful policy advantages in China. In2011, China became the third-largest inbound tourism destination in the world behind France and America. However, Chinese inbound tourism market presents the characteristic of "Pareto principle" chronically, which means the market of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan accounts for more than80%, while foreigner market accounts for less than20%. Therefore, expanding inbound foreigner market plays an important role in the development of Chinese inbound tourism industry. As the three major ports of China, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou which is the core city of Bohai Rim region, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta Economic Zone respectively, have become the main growth poles of Chinese inbound tourism. Both the number of overseas visitor arrivals and the foreign exchange earnings of three ports all rank the top in China, which are also the important transit ports and "second-hand tourist source" of other provinces. They have important influence on spatial distribution and diffusion of Chinese inbound tourist flows. Therefore, the rules of geographical distribution and spatial diffusion of inbound foreigner tourist flows from three major ports are studied in this thesis, which is significant to expand the volume of Chinese inbound foreigner market.The review of related researches is described firstly. Then, the rules of geographical distribution and spatial diffusion are analyzed through map analysis method. And the features on the overall structure and individual position of inbound foreign tourist flows network of the three ports are analyzed comparatively by the social network analysis. The data were collected by questionnaire survey, which includes2158samples obtained from ten hot tourism cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi’an and so on.The conclusions of the research are:(1) The spatial distributions of inbound foreign tourist flows from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou were all unbalanced, which formed the pattern that the flows in the eastern region are more than that in the western region, which are centralized in the middle and eastern regions of China. However, the flows in the northwestern, northeastern and Tibetan Plateau regions are fewer. The inbound foreign tourist flows from Beijing were most widely distributed. Its high-grade inbound tourist flows mainly distributed in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pan-Pearl River Delta, Xi’an and Chengdu-Chongqing regions. The tourist flows formed a "Golden Triangle" and four "Silver Triangles", which constituted the holistic framework of the inbound tourist flows from Beijing. The distribution range of inbound foreign tourist flows from Shanghai ranked the second. Its high-grade inbound tourist flows mainly distributed inside the Yangtze River Delta. These tourist routes, such as Shanghai-Suzhou-Hangzhou, Suzhou-Hangzhou-Nanjing, Shanghai-Beijing-Guilin, constituted the holistic framework of inbound foreign tourist flows from Shanghai. The inbound foreign tourist flows from Guangzhou have the minimum distribution range, which formed the spatial distribution pattern of taking Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Guilin, Shanghai, Beijing and Guilin as the core cities and taking the Pan-Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta as the concentration and diffusion areas.(2) The spatial diffusion intensity of inbound foreign tourism flows from these three ports is uneven. Their flows have the feature that they mainly distribute in the cities which have rich tourism resources and high grade. The flows from Beijing and Shanghai accord with the "Pareto principle" rule, which means that80percent of the flows stem from20percent of the city pairs. However, the flows from Guangzhou stem from the city pairs which have high frequency.(3) The inbound foreign flows network of Beijing and Guangzhou are typical "core-periphery" network, which have a few core nodes and many periphery nodes. The density of the two networks is low and the centralization trend is turned out to be obvious. However, the network of Shanghai is not a "core-periphery" network. Strong cliques were obviously showed in the inbound foreign tourist flows network of the three ports and high intersectionality was found among members in cliques. The more members the cliques, the wider the distribution range. There are some relatively stable destination combinations in the three ports:Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-xi’an and Guilin-Shanghai are the ideal destination combinations in the network of Beijing; Beijing-Guilin and Guangzhou-Guilin are the ideal combinations in the network of Shanghai and Guangzhou respectively.(4) There are clear hierarchy structure in the inbound foreign tourist flows networks of the three ports. The higher grade the nodes, the fewer nodes the network. They are the most periphery nodes in their respective tourist flow network.The four cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin and Xi’an, have the strong ability of gather, diffusion and transit the flows entry from the three ports. They are the centers of gather, distribution and transfer of the flows entry from Beijing. The cities of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta play an important role in gather, diffusion and transfer the flows entry from Shanghai and Guangzhou.The innovations of this study are:(1) The geographical distribution and the topological structure and the types of inbound foreign tourist flows network in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are analyzed firstly.(2) The study shows that the networks of inbound foreign tourist flows from Beijing and Guangzhou are typical "core-periphery" network and their inbound foreign tourist flows accord with the "Pareto principle" rule.