Research On Mechanism Of Regional Tourism Development Driven By Tourist Resources-Market Cooperation

Regional tourism of China started in1980s from the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Bohai Rim, but it has been appearing differentiation for more than twenty years. The Yangtze River Delta is the most effective developed in regional tourism, while Bohai Rim developed slowly. It caused us to refocus on development mechanism of regional tourism by wondering the reason why there were big gaps between different regions. And for this dissertation, it’s where the practical values lie.To study deeply in development mechanism of regional tourism, we need to clarify and answer the following questions. What is regional tourism? What does it contain in regional tourism? What is the function of these components? What relationship do they have between these components? And in different parts of regional tourism, what is it like about the tourism industry distribution? And if we can study and find the answers to these questions then we’ll build the basic theory structure of regional tourism development mechanism. When we look back to the experiment of regional tourism, we can’t help to ask why the Yangtze River Delta is more successful than the others. We need to find out the critical driving factors of tourism development in Yangtze River Delta, from the definition and structure of regional tourism development.The research thoughts become clear now. Based on literature reviews, the dissertation followed a thread from fundamental theory to case study. In the definition discrimination about regional tourism, the dissertation proposed regional tourism should be organized around tourists’activities, which provided clue for building regional tourism system. Systematology is the theory supporting this dissertation. And combined the region system and function system of tourism, a whole new regional tourism system has been set up. According to the decoding of the new system, we found two dimensions for research, which were space elements, and development elements carried by space. And it is the key to study development mechanism, influence factors and developing pattern of regional tourism.The first contribution of this dissertation is to develop the theoretical framework for development mechanism of regional tourism research. The dissertation presents the basis for function division and collaboration of space which laid foundation for tourism industry distribution. After the analysis on general conditions of tourism destination, distributing center and transit region, it brought up that the capacity of tourists’ accommodation and collector-distributor could be the indices of the function determinants. A new definition of tourism enclave came up. The possible spatial relationships on cooperation were examined according to the principle of the interactions between the spaces. In terms of the model of regional tourism system, an industry framework of regional tourism was built to analyze and form the tourism industry layout theory in different functional spaces such as tourism generating region, destination and transit region.Another contribution of the dissertation is to acquire9driving factors above core, assistive and environmental levels which is tourist market, tourist resources, transportation, technologies, capital, natural environment, economic environment, social environment and policy environment, based on the regional tourism components. Due to various combinations of the factors, we proposed6developing patterns, which were resources driven pattern, market driven pattern, market-resources cooperation driven pattern, resources-market centrality driven pattern, traffic driven pattern and policy driven pattern. By systematically analyzing and comparing, we chose the most effective pattern, which was market-resources cooperation driven pattern, to study deeply and then we did a case study using Yangtze River Delta.In case study, it was examined that the Yangtze River Delta regional tourism spatial structure has been going through a polarization trend driven by market-resources cooperation. And the tourism function division and collaboration of space, regional grading system, tourism spatial economy contacting, and tourism spatial polarization-enclave relationship were also discussed. And then the dissertation came up with an analytical framework to reorganize the spatial structure of regional tourism system. Tourist market and resources cooperation resulted in the development of Yangtze River Delta regional tourism. Based on this conclusion, the dissertation discussed the ways of developing for Yangtze River Delta and tourism industry layout in different spaces such as Shanghai, Hangzhou and Huzhou, in detail. The practical analysis provided enlightenment and inspirations for other region in China.