PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2018, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (10): 1392-1404.doi: 10.18306/dlkxjz.2018.10.009

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Spatiotemporal evolution of provincial tourism efficiency and its club convergence in the Chinese Mainland

Yelin FANG1(), Zhenfang HUANG2, Fang WANG3, Jinglong LI1   

  1. 1. School of Business, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
    2. College of Geographic Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
    3. School of Zhuxi Culture and Tourism, Anhui Finance & Trade Vocational College, Hefei 230601, China
  • Received:2017-11-13 Revised:2018-02-04 Online:2018-10-28 Published:2018-10-28
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41601142;Youth Foundation of Humanities and Social Sciences of Education Ministry, No.15YJC790018;Imported Projects of Academic and Technical Leaders in Anhui University, No.J10117700056;Training Program for Youth Backbone Teachers in Anhui University, No.J01005141

Abstract:

The improvement of quality and efficiency of tourism industry is one of the most important tourism issues under China's new normal economy. Based on the data of tourism development and related data of the Chinese mainland from 1997 to 2015, and comprehensively using the methods of modified data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, spatial Markov chain, impulse response model, and club convergence theory and quantitative calculation of tourism efficiency, this study analyzed the spatiotemporal evolution and mechanism of tourism efficiency in the Chinese mainland. The results indicate that: provincial tourism efficiency showed strong regional characteristics. The tourism economy growth was highly intensive in the eastern area, while it was highly extensive in the western region. The transfer of tourism efficiency is always affected by the tourism efficiency of neighboring regions. The spatial transfer of tourism efficiency is more active, but the basic pattern has not changed after considering the spatial factors. Item efficiency showed high stability, especially the scale efficiency. The spatiotemporal evolution of tourism efficiency led to the effect of club convergence to some degree—a phenomenon of "one takes the behavior of one's company." Club convergence of provincial tourism efficiency objectively makes the tourism development "stable"; however, it is not conducive to efficiency improvement. Tourism development cooperation must break through the geographical restrictions in the future.

Key words: tourism efficiency, spatial Markov chain, club convergence, impulse response, China