Urban tourism amenity is not only an extension and innovative perspective of urban amenity, but also a key indicator to measure the high-quality development, market competitiveness and sustainable development level of urban tourism. This study constructed a urban tourism amenity evaluation indicator system consisting of five dimensions: suitable climate, beautiful environment, complete elements, rich resources, and social atmosphere, based on the tourism demand of tourists. The entropy weighting method, integrated linear weighting method, Moran index, hotspot analysis, and multiple linear regression were used to explore the spatial differentiation, obstacle dimensions, and influencing factors of tourism amenity in Chinese cities in 2019. The research found that: 1) The polarization of urban tourism amenity level in China is significant. Most cities with higher tourism amenity are provincial capitals and famous traditional tourism cities, and the phenomenon of "tourism twin cities" is significant. 2) The urban tourism amenity level in China is characterized by a gradient spatial distribution, high in the east and low in the west with hotspots in the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Bohai Rim, and Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone. 3) By focusing on the moderately low and low-level obstacle dimensions in each city, 25 combinations of obstacle dimensions were obtained, with the largest number of cities having two and three-dimensional obstacles (69.59%), and 254 and 209 cities have element and resource dimension obstacles, respectively, indicating that tourism amenity in Chinese cities is generally constrained by these two dimensions. 4) Overall, the spatial differentiation of tourism amenity in Chinese cities is mainly influenced by supply and geographic environment variables, with the supply variable having the greatest influence; sub-dimensionally, climate suitability is mainly influenced by geography, environmental beauty is influenced by both supply and demand, element completeness is mainly influenced by supply factors, and resource abundance and social atmosphere are influenced by both supply and geography. This study further expands and enriches the outreach and perspective of the urban amenity research system, and provides scientific reference for targeting and optimizing the urban tourism amenity barrier dimension.