HSR mechanisms and effects on the spatial structure of regional tourism in China

Abstract

Chinese railway has entered the "HSR era", while the structure of "four vertical and four horizontal" railways for transit passengers is almost completed. Taking the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail (hereinafter referred to as HSR) as an example, this paper first explores HSR's effects on the spatial structure of regional tourist flows using the social network analysis. Next, it notes changes in the accessibility of regional transportation. After analyzing the factors including initial endowment of regional tourism resources, hospitality facilities, the density of the regional tourism transportation network, and locations, the paper discusses the mechanisms through which HSR affects regional tourist flows. The study shows the following: (1) HSR's effects on the spatial structure of regional tourist flows are manifested through the Matthew effect, the filtering effect, the diffusion effect and the overlying effect, and (2) the Matthew effect of HSR is manifested under an obvious interaction of the location, the initial endowment of tourism resources, hospitality capacity, tourist transportation network density and "time-space compression". The filtering effect of HSR is manifested for those tourism nodes without favorable location conditions, endowment of tourism resources, hospitality capacity, or tourist transportation network density and without obvious benefits from "time-space compression". Those tourism nodes that boast advantages in terms of location condition, endowment of tourism resources, hospitality capacity, tourist transportation network density and obvious "time-space compression" will become sources for the diffusion effect. HSR will strengthen the aggregation effects of tourist flow in these diffusion sources, which will thereafter diffuse to peripheral tourist areas, manifesting "aggregation-diffusion". HSR has overlapped tourists' spatial traveling range over large-scale spaces. However, the overlying effect is only generated in those tourism nodes with a favorable location condition, an endowment of tourism resources, hospitality capacity, tourist transportation network density, and obvious "time-space compression".

Impacts of high-speed rail development on urban land expansion and utilization intensity in China

“…For the small-and medium-sized cities, it was not significant, which is similar to the result of Shen et al that the impetus of Spanish HSR on urban growth was more obvious in big cities than in small cities (Shen et al, 2013). This may be because accessibility of big cities was improved drastically with frequent HSR runs (Jiao et al, 2017), and just due to the emergence of HSR, big cities attracted population, capital, and other economic factors from other cities more conveniently than before by their advantages (Wang et al, 2016).…”

“…Compared with big cities, because of lack of driving forces, small cities were more dependent on HSR station location with respect to ULE. The ability of factor conglomeration of big cities was higher than that of small cities (Wang et al, 2016), and they did not completely depend on HSR station location to drive urban growth; therefore, HSR station distance exerted negative effect on ULUI only for small cities. observed that for the central region cities and small cities, HSR station distance exerted a negative effect on ULUI, which should be regulated emphatically.…”

“…The same results were observed when independent variable Stadis was adopted, and for the eastern, central cities and big cities, HSR station distance exerted positive effect on ULE at the significance level of 5% and above, while for the western cities and small-and medium-sized cities, it was insignificant. The possible reason is that the growth of western cities and small-and medium-sized cities lacks impetus, and growth factors do not tend to flow into them (Wang et al, 2016); even if HSR station is taken as spatial instrument for urban leapfrog development by local governments, this tendency is not changed. As Deng et al (2020) analysed that the demand of economic, population and employment growths were prerequisites for HSR station surrounding development, and HSR station should not be solely understood as an impetus for urban development.…”

Spatial evolution model of tourist destinations based on complex adaptive system theory: A case study of Southern Anhui, China

“…Others utilized this theory to develop theoretical concepts and quantification methods of tourist destinations' life cycles (Lundtorp and Wanhill, 2001;Shao and Gao, 2006;Yang, 2009;Zhang and Sun, 2012;Salvador, 2016). As the study of tourism evolution developed further, scholars gradually extended their attention to the development of tourist destinations to scenic spots, service facilities, transportation elements, land use, and other aspects while acknowledging that the traditional life cycle theory was no longer sufficient to explain evolutionary processes and mechanisms (Jin et al, 2009;Wang et al, 2011;Ji et al, 2012;Geng and Song, 2013;Yang and Lu, 2013;Liao et al, 2014;Xi et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2016;Pagliara et al, 2017;Hernandez et al, 2017;Liu and Li, 2018). The advances of system sciences allowed scholars to successively apply general system theory, dissipative structure theory, and system dynamics theory to the study of tourist destination evolution in order to explain evolutionary processes and mechanisms based on the perspective of the system and explore the characteristics of tourist destination systems, such as integrity, organicity, dynamics, and non-equilibrium (Yang et al, 2009;Lu and Bao, 2010;Liu et al, 2013;Olmedo and Mateos, 2015).…”

Study on Spatial Structure Dynamic Evolution of Tourism Economic Zone along Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR

“…Huang Ai-lian (2011) [2], Xiao Yan-fei (2013) [3], Wang De-gen (2015) [4] build a double logarithm model, use the new economic geography model, the grey prediction model, the social survey questionnaire, GIS and social network analysis method, to discuss the influence of Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR and Beijing-Shanghai HSR on the development of tourism and producer services industry in their neighboring areas, put forward the contribution of the diffusion and agglomeration effects of High-speed railway on the regional tourism and service From the qualitative and macro point of view, from the perspective of economics, the new geography perspective, most of these studies explore the impact of transportation on the regional tourism economy and put forward the countermeasures for the development of regional tourism economy in the era of High-speed railway. This paper constructs the index reflecting the social, economic and tourism development of tourism economic zone along High-speed …”