Tourism Flow Between Major Cities During China’s National Day Holiday: A Social Network Analysis Using Weibo Check-in Data

Lingxian Zhang,Wenbao Liu,Naixia Mou,Tengfei Yang,Feng Liu,Anjun Li

doi:10.1109/access.2020.3044613

Abstract

Holiday tourism flow is a significant indicator to evaluate the development of tourism. The exploration of the rule of tourism flow between cities can not only provide reasonable suggestions for stimulating demand, promoting consumption and economic development, but also make crucial significance for the management of tourism destinations and the optimization of spatial structure of tourism flow. Based on Weibo check-in data, this paper, by using social network analysis, studies the spatial distribution and network structure characteristics of tourism flow in 50 major cities in China during the National Day holiday in 2018. The results show that: 1) the tourism flow connection of the main cities in China represents a diamond shaped spatial structure with “Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou-Chengdu” as the core. There exists spatial heterogeneity in different levels of tourism flow intensity and proximity and selectivity in tourism links between cities; 2) the intensity of tourism connection between cities in China is clearly divided into different levels. On the basis of index of degree of centrality, Beijing and Shanghai are far higher than other cities;3) there are obvious differences between core nodes and edge nodes, with the core nodes often composed of cities with high economic development or rich tourism resources. Although the number is small, it plays a significant role in driving the edge cities; 4) the urban tourism flow network is relatively stable, but most cities have relatively weak tourism links and more small-scale tourism flows. In the division of cohesive subgroups, the fifth and sixth subgroups are not only the main tourist sources but also the main destinations. Whether it is the internal connection of subgroups or the connection with other subgroups, tourism flow has a very high density of connection.

Highlights

Tourism flow [1] refers to the phenomenon of collective migration of tourists in the spatial area
Inter-city tourism is more valuable in the domestic market [4], and tourism flow has become one of the important indicators to evaluate the improvement of urban tourism
1) Hierarchy of roles in urban tourism nodes Different from the standard of traditional tourism city classification, this paper, on the basis of the degree of centrality index of city nodes, divides the research city into five grades (Table III) by using the natural fracture point

Summary

Introduction

Tourism flow [1] refers to the phenomenon of collective migration of tourists in the spatial area. Tourism flow is divided into two kinds, namely, narrow sense and broad sense. Tourism flow means the number of tourist groups between the source and destination; in a broad sense, tourism flow includes tourism flow, and information flow, material flow between the source and destination as well as various capital flows undertaken by tourists and tourism operators. As an important node of tourism flow, city, with the collection of many spatial tourism elements, is the source, transit and destination of tourism, as well as the spatial carrier of collecting or diffusion of tourism flow [3]. With the improvement of the tertiary industry, the inter-city transportation network and social consumption, people are more apt to go out and play between cities, gradually forming a closer relationship of inter-city tourism flows and a stable and complex inter-city tourism flow network.

Results

Discussion

Conclusion