An Empirical Study on the Coupling Coordination Relationship between Cultural Tourism Industry Competitiveness and Tourism Flow

Shaowen Li,Shuyun Du

doi:10.3390/su13105525

Abstract

The case study for this analysis is Henan province in China, where sustainability is a central issue for tourism development due to the area’s enormous and unexploited potential for cultural tourism. We construct a cultural tourism industry competitiveness evaluation index from cultural resource competitiveness, economic development support competitiveness, ecological environment competitiveness and basic guarantee competitiveness, and also construct a tourism flow evaluation index from tourist flow, consumption flow and effect flow. For this study, we then adopt an Entropy-TOPSIS and Coupling Coordination model to analyze the characteristics of coupling and coordinated development of them from 2009 to 2019. The empirical results show that (1) the comprehensive development index of cultural tourism industry competitiveness and tourism flow exhibits a fluctuating rise trend and maintains good development momentum; and (2) the coupling coordination degree between the cultural tourism industry competitiveness and tourism flow in Henan Province as a whole is gradually improving and the coupling coordination level developed from extreme disorder to grudging coordination, but it is unpromising in some parts of cities. Some recommendations are provided to promote the coupling and coordinated development of cultural tourism industry competitiveness and tourism flow for cities.

Highlights

As a worldwide export category and a key sector of the world economy, tourism plays an increasingly critical role in creating job opportunities, generating huge revenues and promoting economic prosperity
When the cultural tourism industry competitiveness index increases by 1 percentage point, the tourism flow increases by 0.923 percentage points. These results indicate that there is a strong correlation between cultural tourism industry competitiveness and tourism flow, and that there may be strong coupling coordination
With the enhancement of cultural tourism industry competitiveness and tourism flow, their coupling coordination level developed from extreme disorder to good grudging coordination, showing an obvious upward trend; (2) From the perspective of different cities, the “polarization effect” of coupling coordination level is gradually increasing, and the coupling and coordinated development of some cities are still not promising; and (3) Combined with the current situation of cultural tourism industry competitiveness and tourism flow, this paper divides the coupling and coordinated development of 17 cities into four types according to the four quadrants model, and makes some recommendations to promote the coupling and coordinated development of cultural tourism industry competitiveness and tourism flow

Summary

Introduction

As a worldwide export category and a key sector of the world economy, tourism plays an increasingly critical role in creating job opportunities, generating huge revenues and promoting economic prosperity. The international tourism revenue and the number of international tourists rose rapidly during the period between 2005 and 2018 The former increased from USD 811 billion to USD. With the development of tourism and the growth of disposable income, individuals have greater expenditures on travel itineraries, and they have higher expectations and requirements for tourist destinations [3,4]. This phenomenon has intensified the fierce competition within the tourism industry, because only the most competitive destinations are likely to grow [4,5]. Previous studies have identified different factors that are beneficial to building the competitive advantage of a destination, including problem recognition skills [10], branding [11], advertising [12], green initiatives [13] and service customization [14]

Methods

Results

Conclusion