Abstract
Abstract With the rapid development of the tourism industry, the water resource consumption in tourism has largely increased and gets more complicated, making water resource management in tourism more difficult. To achieve sustainable water utilization in tourism, water resource management has to take full account of the local natural, social, and industrial conditions, both satisfying the demands of water resource protection and tourism development. To analyze this coupling relationship, an integrated index system comprised of 15 indices is designed, and a coupling degree model between tourism-related water resource management and local conditions is introduced. The result revealed that tourism-related water resource management is generally congruent with the local conditions in China, and provinces at the very high/low coupling stage presented four clusters. A discussion combining the change of water policies and the water use efficiency of hotels in Beijing revealed that water-saving policies are proven to be necessary for the tourism development. Furthermore, a discussion of the four clusters revealed the advanced experience and deficiency of water policies in substantial tourism areas. The results could provide references for the improvement of water policies in the tourism industry in China.
Highlights
The tourism industry has been officially identified as a strategic pillar industry in China; its total revenue reached up to 6.63 trillion RMB in 2019, accounting for 6.6% of China’s total GDP, while its contributions to employment totaled 79.87 million individuals, or 10% of the total figure for national employment (Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, 2019)
The integrated scores of tourism-related water resource management are calculated according to formula (6) and divided into five ranks using the Jenks Natural Breaks (Figure 3(a))
The coupling degree of tourism-related water management subsystem and local condition subsystem is calculated according to formula (3)
Summary
The tourism industry has been officially identified as a strategic pillar industry in China; its total revenue reached up to 6.63 trillion RMB in 2019, accounting for 6.6% of China’s total GDP, while its contributions to employment totaled 79.87 million individuals, or 10% of the total figure for national employment (Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, 2019). Given its potential to contribute to regional economic growth and social development with a reduced industrial base, the tourism industry is considered as a new engine for the development of backward areas in West and Middle China. Tourist hotspots are usually water-scarce areas such as mountains, islands, and deserts, while tourism activities are concentrated during sunny periods that are associated with low precipitation, resulting in spatiotemporal dissonance between tourism activities and water resources. These potential contradictions between the water supply and demand may likely exacerbate the water resource risks in the tourist hotspots (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018)
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