Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

The Regional Pattern and Hierarchical Tendencies of Service-Oriented Tourist City Network: A Connectivity Analysis of 63 Cities in China

Version 1 : Received: 15 July 2020 / Approved: 17 July 2020 / Online: 17 July 2020 (09:09:52 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Tang, H. Regional Patterns and Hierarchical Tendencies: Analysis of the Network Connectivity of 63 Service-Oriented Tourist Cities in China. Sustainability 2020, 12, 6532. Tang, H. Regional Patterns and Hierarchical Tendencies: Analysis of the Network Connectivity of 63 Service-Oriented Tourist Cities in China. Sustainability 2020, 12, 6532.

Abstract

[Background] Previous research achievements of the service-oriented tourist city network have often focused on the analysis of its geographical distribution and service role of the important cities instead of the connections and hierarchical tendencies between the whole city in a large region.[Method]Using big data approaches on the regional connections of 38 tourism organizations including famous hotels, air passenger transport, tourism service agencies across 63 most important tourist cities in China. Fuzzy c-means clustering analysis is used to define 8 city arena clusters. [Results]According to the distributions of connectivity between 63 cities, these eight clusters play different service functional roles in the urban tourism network at four hierarchies. With their “center-edge” memberships, these arena clusters are formed by the interweaving process of regional and hierarchical tourism service connections. The results include the analysis of the various service-oriented tourist city in China and point out the geography “gap” faced by network. [Conclusion] Service-oriented tourist cities need to find their hierarchies and positioning in the network scientifically to avoid blind development, to make regional urban tourism sustainable development.

Keywords

tourism geography; city connectivity; tourism services value; functional role; urban urbanhierarchy; regional pattern

Subject

Social Sciences, Geography, Planning and Development

Comments (1)

Comment 1
Received: 22 July 2020
Commenter:
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.
Comment: From the perspective of geography, the main service-oriented tourist cities in China are just like the tourism service nodes in the geographical space, but there are differences in service scale, service function and consumption level among these nodes, and they will form an organic connected network together. According to the differences of the branches of 38 tourism organizations with typical representative value in major tourist cities, and the branch offices of the same tourism organization are related to each other, it can be seen that there are some differences of hierarchical tendencies in these service-oriented tourist cities. Combined with the geographical distribution of these cities, we can see the characteristics of regional pattern among tourist cities. Understanding the hierarchical tendencies and regional patterns of major tourism cities in the tourism connection network is conducive to different tourist cities to make a reasonable positioning for their own tourism development, and help to formulate tourism planning scientifically.
At the same time, this work can be a good supplement to the flow space theory of Manuel Castells and the "center edge" theory.
+ Respond to this comment

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment
Views 0
Downloads 0
Comments 1
Metrics 0


×
Alerts
Notify me about updates to this article or when a peer-reviewed version is published.
We use cookies on our website to ensure you get the best experience.
Read more about our cookies here.