Abstract
The fierce competition in tourism has brought a string of problems, such as the homogeneous development of regional tourism resources and the escalation of regional competition. One key issue in urban tourism today is how to identify competitors, recognize own advantageous resources, and clarify the direction of development. This paper evaluates the competitiveness of regional tourism in three steps: setting up an evaluation system, calculating niche and niche overlap, and conducting synthesis and cluster analysis. Firstly, a comprehensive evaluation system of urban tourism niche was established, which includes such four dimensions as tourism resources, tourism market, social economy, and eco-environment, and the weight of each index was calculated by entropy method. Next, regional niche and niche overlap were computed by niche theory. Taking the mean of niche overlap and that of composite niche as the references, the authors drew an overall distribution map of regional tourism niche. After that, a cluster analysis was carried out with the four-dimensional niche and composite niche of regional tourism. Finally, an empirical analysis was performed on the tourism competitiveness in ten prefectures of Shaanxi Province, using the data in 2010–2018. The results show that the prefectures differed greatly in tourism development and competed fiercely against each other.
Highlights
A comprehensive evaluation system of urban tourism niche was established, which includes such four dimensions as tourism resources, tourism market, social economy, and eco-environment, and the weight of each index was calculated by entropy method
The dimension of tourism resources reflects the quantity and quality of regional tourism resources, both of which are critical to regional tourism development. e dimension of tourism market characterizes the direct business performance of economic activities in tourism, which embodies the vitality of urban tourism development
E dimension of social economy lays the basis for regional tourism activities. e dimension of eco-environment exerts a major impact on tourism activities: without a good eco-environment, a region cannot leave tourists a good impression, not to mention attracting new tourists
Summary
There are 49,058 cultural relics sites, 253 museums, 79 world heritages and national intangible cultural heritages, and 51 national historical and cultural cities, towns, and villages. E research data were collected from Statistical Yearbooks of Shaanxi Province (2010–2018), National Development and Statistical Bulletins of each prefecture in Shaanxi Province (2010–2018), Shaanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Statistics, as well as the official websites of prefectural governments. E five indices of tourism resources, namely, national 3A scenic spots or above (C1), world heritages and national intangible cultural heritages (C2), national key cultural relics protection units (C3), national historical and cultural cities, towns, and villages (C4), and national forest parks (C5), were rated against the following criteria: 10 points for 5A scenic spots, 7 points for 4A scenic spots, and 4 points for 3A scenic spots. Considering the various index attributes, the index data were nondimensionalized by formulas (1) and (2), and the weight of each index was determined by formulas (3)–(6)
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