A Study On The Coupling Diachronicity And Reality Of Inbound Tourism Flow And Destination In Shanghai

Inbound tourist flows research and tourism destination research have been impor-tant parts in tourism research, scholars’study on the two parts have made fruitful achievements. As domestic tourism market and the outbound tourism market continue to expand, the inbound tourism, which has broad prospect, develop slowly, or even stagnate in recent years. The reason is that, although the global economic crisis is the most important factor, the imbalance of tourism demand and destination supply has been one of the important factors, which obsessed the development, and hindered the transformation and upgrading of inbound tourism. But studies about the relationship of tourist flows and destination is still at an embryonic stage among theoretical studies, so research on the coupling relationship of inbound tourist flows and destination become urgent both on theory and practice. As one of Chinese three major ports of entry, the number and revenue of Shanghai inbound tourism have been at the forefront in China, but also failed to avoid the problem of imbalance of supply and demand, so the imbalance of tourism demand and destination supply needs to be sovled urgently. This article took Shanghai as a case, and made a comprehensive and systemic analysis of historical evolution and realistic perception evaluation of coupling relationship of tourist flows and destination. On the one hand, the study will reveal the deep coupling relationship of inbound tourist flows and destination, and deepen the precision of interaction and association research on inbound tourism and destination, on the other hand, this article will provide guidance for city management, service operation and construction from practical view.This paper relied on the project of National Natural Science Fund "inbound tourist flows and destination coupling:factors, models and mechanisms-inbound tourism of six cities for example". Based on statistics and data from market survey in which the author involved personally, the paper took the coupling relationship of inbound tourist flows and destination as reserch object, and choosed Shanghai, a typical tourism city, as a case. At first, this paper made a diachronic analysis of coupling coordination degree of inbound tourist flows and destination during2000-2012by constructing evaluation index system of coupling, and summarized the evolution law of coupling relationship; Secondly, this paper made an analysis of results of perception evaluation of coupling relationship from inbound tourists, residents, tourism employees and government tourism managers through investigation of reality, and verified the consistency of these findings and the results of quantitative analysis, then summarized the state the current coupling relationship of inbound tourist flows and destination of Shanghai stayed. Finally, from the perspective of inbound tourists, this paper made an analysis of pincipal coupling factors, and calculated factor score, so as to put forward more specific recommendations.The conclusions of this paper are the following:(1) During2000-2012, the coupling coordination degree of inbound tourist flows and destination of Shanghai kept stable and upward trend, coupling coordination degree rose from the brink of disorder to the good coordination gradually, and then return to intermediate coordination. Inbound tourist flows and destination coupled and interacted closely, they continued self-improvement in the process of the coupling and interaction, and prompted coupling system changed from disorder to order gradually. The change of coupling coordination degree was affected by both inbound tourist flows and destination changes, and the change was affected more by inbound tourist flows, less by destination. The change of coupling coordination degree experienced rapid growth phase, steady lifting phase and wave phase.(2) Divided by the coupling intensity of inbound tourist flows and destination subsystems, the subsystems are in sequence of tourism attraction, tourism facilities, tourism service and marketing, and tourism environment. Inbound tourist flows and destination subsystems coupled and interacted obviously, coupling coordination degree rose with fluctuations, the change of which generally experienced rapid growth phase, steady lifting phase and wave phase. Coupling coordination degree at this stage is in the midlevel coordination or good coordination.(3) The perception evaluation of tourism employees, residents, inbound tourists, government tourism managers for coupling relationship of inbound tourist flows and destination reduces gradually, the reason is related to the status different groups stayed and the role different groups played in destination system. The quantitative evaluation based on coupling model and the perception evaluation based on perception survey tend to be consistent on the numerical value at the present stage, the theoretical model was effectively verified by realistic perception evaluation.(4) Tourism supply of Shanghai exceeds the demand in the overall number at the present stage, but still stays in an structural imbalance, tourism supply of destination is obviously insufficient in tourism marketing, tourism service, and tourism environment.(5) Through realistic analysis, this paper found that the main factors of coupling relationship of inbound tourist flows and destination of Shanghai can be mainly summed up as:tourism marketing, tourism attraction, tourism transportation, economy environment, eco-environment, catering facilities and service, and so on, according to their importance. Among these factors, tourism marketing and eco-environment have low score, and tourism transportation, economy environment have higher score.The innovation of this paper include the following points:(1) The paper found that the coupling intensity of tourism attraction, tourism facilities, tourism service and marketing, tourism environment and inbound tourist flows weakens in turn when making a diachronic analysis of coupling relationship.(2) Introduce the factor analysis when analysis perception evaluation of coupling relationship of inbound tourist flows and destination, which expand the way of such studies. Through factor analysis, this paper extracted major factor of coupling relation-ship of inbound tourist flows and destination, and got the factor scores of these factors, then proposed strategies and recommendations according to current situation of coupl-ing relationship of Shanghai.