A Distribution Feature And Regional Disparity Study On International Chain Catering Enterprises In Mainland China

During the last 20 years, the international chain catering enterprises expanded rapidly in Mainland China, and even led the development of local chain catering industry; the Mainland had also become one of the most developed and fastest-growing overseas markets of the international chain catering enterprises. As an important aspect of the core competitiveness of an international chain catering enterprise, the location and distribution of the outlets play an important role in the expanding of the enterprises, which, from one hand, are influenced by subjective expansion strategy and competitive strategy established by enterprises, from the other hand, are also determined by objective differences in socio-economic conditions. By applying the spatial data analysis techniques in GIS, selecting typical catering enterprises as research object, and discussing the relationship between the spatial distribution differences of the international chain catering enterprises and regional disparities, it will not only help us have a better understanding of the spatial distribution feature and grasp the macro location rules, but also reflect the different appeal of different region to catering enterprises from another perspective.The main work of this paper is to explore the spatial distribution laws of the international chain catering enterprises and analyze the reasons for regional disparities by selecting the two catering giant, KFC and McDonald’s, as the examples and the powerful spatial data analysis (SDA) techniques of GIS for support. Specific study is carried out from the following aspects:(1) General distribution features of KFC and McDonald’s in the Mainland have been summarized on different scales, including spatial imbalance, centralized distribution and related distribution features, and comparative analysis of the two has been given on the similarities and differences in spatial distribution; Associated distribution features of KFC and McDonald’s have been elaborated through counting their outlets number and indicating the correlation between them in different provinces, cities and urban districts.(2) Expansion depth of KFC and McDonald’s in the Mainland and their differences have been explored through the statistical analysis of the expansion scale from first-tier cities to the fifth-tier cities between the two enterprises; To exclude the interference of demographic factors, per capita number of KFC and McDonald’s outlets in main cites has been selected as reference to demonstrate the great magnet of some second or third tier cities for international chain catering enterprises more objectively; Spatial autocorrelation analysis method has been introduced to study the aggregative distribution features of international chain catering enterprises in the Mainland;(3) The main reasons for lateral expansion scale and depth differences and longitudinal spatial pattern differences have been analyzed respectively from subjective business strategy differences and objective socio-economic conditions differences based on single discriminant analysis, OLS regression model and GWR model;(4) Central place hierarchy system has been constructed based on space partition function of Voronoi diagram by taking the number of KFC outlets as the main attribute to help analyze the aggregative distribution feature of international chain catering enterprises in the Mainland.Above all, this paper mainly studies the general spatial distribution features, associated distribution features, expansion depth features and aggregative distribution features of international chain catering enterprises in the Mainland, and attempts to explain the reasons for regional disparities from different perspectives. In addition, this study has also synthetically used the spatial analysis techniques and methods in GIS, carried out the research thought of combining by quantitative and qualitative methods, graphics and data, and the analysis results have more been presented in the form of thematic maps, which makes the expression of results more directly perceived and iconic, and is a reference to latter relevant research about spatial distribution and regional disparities analysis.