Unveiling interprovincial geographic patterns of 5A-level tourism cultural ecosystem service flows and tourist preferences in China’s metacoupled systems

Abstract

In the metacoupling Anthropocene, tourism-based culture ecosystem services flows (CESF) can establish non-material bridges from the natural to the human system, even across vast geographic distances. However, there remains a knowledge gap regarding investigation of nature-related tourist travel patterns at flow geographic scales. To address this gap, we analyzed the intracoupling (within-province), pericoupling (adjacent-province), and telecoupling (distant-provincial) flow patterns using a sample of 143,681 5A attractions travel comments with Internet Protocol (IP) location data. Emotional preferences derived from travel reviews were then quantified using machine learning models in China’s post-COVID-19 pandemic era. The results showed significant spatial differences in nature-based 5A-level CESF, which the China’s telecoupling performance of CESF (0.34) is higher than pericoupling (0.20), but intracoupling (0.46) remains dominant. Tourists from northeastern provinces exhibited a preferences for telecoupling, while those from southwestern provinces showed intracoupling patterns. Forest ecosystems contribute nearly one-third (30.70%) of cultural services and are primarily characterized by intracoupling patterns. Sentiment analysis indicated that tourists’ emotional preferences vary with travel distance, with long-distance tourists tending to appreciate indigenous cultures. Overall, this study provides new insights into investigate the dynamics of CESF, which could inform policy actions aimed at revitalizing the tourism sector.