The Impact Of The Opening Of Lanzhou-Urumqi High-Speed Railway On The Tourism Growth Of Cities Along The Line

In the context of China’s economic transformation,the transformation of the main social contradictions and the arrival of the decisive year of building a moderately prosperous society,the rapid and high-quality development of tourism is not only about economic growth,but also about people’s well-being.The transportation factor has always been one of the important influencing factors of tourism development,in the era of "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway construction,high-speed railway will have a certain degree of impact on tourism development.What is the role of high-speed rail in the development of tourism development? What is the mechanism of its impact? What is the direction and extent of the impact of HSR on tourism development?Is this impact heterogeneous? Therefore,the paper will reveal the intrinsic mechanism of high-speed railroads affecting tourism development from the theoretical level,and empirically analyze the size,direction and heterogeneity of the impact of the opening of high-speed railroads on tourism development in cities along the route through detailed data,so as to provide countermeasure suggestions for the development of high-speed railways and tourism.Firstly,this paper summarizes the relevant research results from three main aspects:regional development of tourism,impact of transportation on tourism and the main impact of high-speed railway on tourism;secondly,the framework of the impact mechanism of high-speed rail on tourism in cities along the route is constructed from three aspects:accessibility,tourism flow and tourism industry structure;Finally,at the empirical level,36 prefecture-level cities and autonomous prefectures along the Lanzhou-Urumqi highspeed railway are selected for the study,and the double difference model and propensity matching score are used to investigate the relevant characteristics of tourism development in cities along the route in the context of high-speed railway,as well as the magnitude and direction of the impact of the opening of high-speed railway on the total tourism revenue and the total number of tourists,and further explore the heterogeneity effect of cities of different sizes and site versus non-site cities,and finally,the empirical results are tested for robustness.It is found that:(1)the construction of high-speed rail increases the transportation capacity and improves the investment environment of transportation infrastructure,while improving accessibility and reducing transaction costs by compressing time and space,accelerating the development of tourism and enabling the optimization of the industrial structure.(2)The opening of Lanzhou-Urumqi high-speed railway has boosted tourism growth in cities along the route,resulting in an increase in total tourism revenue of 2.1billion yuan,up 32.7%,and an increase in the total number of tourists of 2.39 million people,up 27.8%.(3)There is heterogeneity in the impact of Lanzhou-Urumqi highspeed railway on tourism development among cities of different sizes.The impact of high-speed rail is significant for medium and large cities,but not for small cities,indicating a significant siphon effect on small cities;The impact of Lanzhou-Urumqi high-speed railway on tourism growth in site and non-site cities differs,with LanzhouUrumqi high-speed railway contributing significantly more to tourism growth in site cities than to tourism growth in non-site cities.