Research On The Impact Of Air Transport Network On The Development Of Urban Tourism In China

Aviation and tourism are very interlinked.Air transport is an increasing important mode of transport for tourism,especially for long distance travel and much international tourism.A good air connectivity in the network is essential for the development of tourist destination to improve its competitiveness.The aim of this article is to study the in-depth,comprehensive relationship between air transport network and the urban tourism.First,the article analyzes the driving forces of city tourism from the perspective of tourism system,and analyses the mechanism between air transport network and city tourism in two ways—demand and supply.Secondly,it builds a city air transport network from two aspects—airport and city.In the airport way,it defines the airport as node and flight as connection consisting of direct flight and indirect connection transferring by a hub.By using two indicators—the air connection number and quality,it measures the airport connectivity in the air network.In the city way,travelers not only enjoy the air transport services of local airports,but also they are affected by the surrounding airports.It is a very important factor that the distance between the airport and city for measuring how much the passenger can be influenced by the surrounding airports.Based on the airport connectivity,air connectivity of city can be measured by using the distance decay function.The data of China’s 227 airports and 338 cities from 2005 to 2017 are used in measuring the annual air transport network connectivity of cities.Finally,based on analysis of the mechanism and city’s air connectivity in aviation network,empirical analysis of spatial econometric model panel is used to study the relationships between the air connectivity and tourism of city from two sides-demand and supply of tourism.The incoming of International and domestic tourism are used to measure development of tourism economy and the number of star hotels are used to measure the condition of urban tourism resources and facilities in the city.The empirical results show that the air transport network has a significant positive effect on the development of city tourism.On the one hand,it is convenient for tourist to get in the destination with a strong air connectivity.The higher air connectivity of the city,the more conducive it is to reduce the travel costs of tourists and the more it can attract tourists from tourist market especially for the long distance travel and international tourism.On the other hand,there is a positive effect between the air connectivity with condition of tourism resources and facilities.Aviation not only brings more tourists,but also promotes the flow of production factors such as capital,logistics,information,et al,which has a role in promoting the development of local tourism resources and the construction of tourist facilities,and better promotes development of urban tourism.