Influential Factor Detection for Tourism on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Based on Social Media Data

Abstract

Tourism is playing an important role in the economic development of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). To better develop tourism in this region, the spatial heterogeneity of influencing factors on tourism needs to be studied. Using the spatial distribution of tourism potential from social media data, this paper analyzes the influencing factors of tourism on the QTP from the perspective of spatial heterogeneity. We extract microblogs related to travel topics connected to the QTP in 2017 from Sina Weibo to capture tourism potential. Then, factors considered from six aspects (tourism resources, amenities, transportation, geography, population, and the economy) are selected, and a geographic detector (Geodetector) is employed to detect the explanatory power of these factors for tourism potential. The results indicate different influential tourism factors in Qinghai and Tibet. In Qinghai, the main factors are hotels, tourist attractions, and road network density, and the explanatory power of the factors mainly comes from eastern and western Qinghai. In Tibet, the main factors are road network density, regional GDP (Gross Domestic Product), and urban land. It is suggested that tourism in the central region of Qinghai can be improved by enhancing the publicity and utilization of tourism resources, and Tibet should enhance tourism resource utilization and improve tourism amenities and infrastructure.