| Tourist flow and destination are two of main issues in the tourism research. Fruitful research on these two topics has been conducted by scholars at home and abroad. However, extant literature mostly fixates on the tourist flow or tourist destination, and the relationship between them is an area currently under-researched. At the same time, decision-makers in the tourism industry are not clear about whether the tourism supply is coordinated with the tourism demand or not for many cities in China, where the equilibrium problem in tourism supply and demand is in need of urgent solution in the process of rapid tourism development. Therefore, how to appropriately evaluate and further optimize the relationship between tourism supply and demand has become an important proposition for the government, scholars and practitioners related to the tourism industry.Supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.41271158), the aim of this thesis is to explore an effective method to solve the problem stated above. Accordingly, the first part of this thesis concerns the theoretical background and a conceptual model of structural coupling is developed, based on literature review on tourist flows, tourist destinations and coupling, and an evaluation index system about the structural coupling of inbound tourist flow and destination is established from the perspective of six components of tourism i.e. food (F), hotels (H), transport (T), attractions (A), shopping (S) and entertainment (E). After that, choosing Xi’an inbound tourism as the case study, it employs entropy method, fuzzy synthetic evaluation and importance-performance analysis, with analytical software such as EXCEL, SPSS, and MATLAB, to analyze the evaluation on structural coupling of inbound tourist flow and destination from the perspective of supply and demand, on the basis of the questionnaire surveys to inbound tourists (400valid questionnaires) and practitioners and government staffs closely related to inbound tourism (300valid questionnaires). In addition,16semi-structured interviews were conducted with this kind of practitioners and government staffs, and an optimization model of structural coupling of the tourist flow and destination for Xi’an inbound tourism is developed in the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data collected. The research findings indicate that, from the perspective of demand, it is in the basically-coordinated stage that overall structural coupling of inbound tourist flow and destination in Xi’an. The importance of six components of inbound tourism in descending order is:T>A>E>F>S>H. At the same time, component H and A are well-coordinated, while other four components are basically-coordinated, according to their performance. From the perspective of supply, it is also in the basically-coordinated stage that overall structural coupling of the inbound tourist and destination in Xi’an. What is different is that the importance of six components of inbound tourism in descending order is:A> E> T> F> S> H. In the meantime, component S is narrowly-coordinated, while other five components are in the basically-coordinated phase. Main reasons why these similarities and differences exist are development levels of six components of inbound tourism in Xi’an, perceptions of inbound tourists, government staffs and practitioners, and their corresponding positions.Also, Main strengths/weaknesses about the supply of inbound tourism in Xi’an now include the uniqueness of cultural heritage, the relative maturity of tourism development, poorly international accessibility, single type of tourism products, and mismatch of the government and enterprises. In the meantime, personalized travel choices, popularized tourist types, and superficial tourism modes are increasingly typical features of inbound tourists’demand in Xi’an. Taken all together, among the six components of inbound tourism in Xi’an, components T and E are the "concentrate here" attribute, component A belongs to the "keep up the good work" attribute, component S and F are the "low priority" attribute, and it is an overkill to focus on the component H. Five aspects of transformation in inbound tourism development of Xi’an should be highly emphasized in the future, that is, transforming from "obstruction" to "circulation", from "conservation" to "innovation", from "hard-power" to "soft-power", from "quantity" to "quality", and from "producing" to "marketing".As for the innovation points, this research, firstly, redefines the concept of structural coupling and develops an evaluation index system about the structural coupling of inbound tourist flow and destination from the perspective of six components of tourism, which could not only help us understand the overall coupling of them, but also uncover their specific structural coupling conditions. Secondly, it analyzes the evaluation on the structural coupling of inbound tourist flow and destination based on questionnaires and in-depth interviews from the perspective of demand and supply at the micro-level, on the basis of which it develops an optimization model of structural coupling of inbound tourist flow and destination that is of great significance for the sustainable development of tourism industry in the destination selected.The present research also has some limitations, such as the incomplete evaluation index system and interviewees. Future studies would improve the shortcomings stated above and seek some new questions related, to further enhance the research value. |
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