Spatial imbalance characteristics and driving mechanism of tourism specialization in the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River
JIANG Kui,ZHENG Qunming*
(College of Tourism, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, Hunan, China;Research Institute for Education Tourism, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, Hunan, China)
Abstract:
Based on the panel data of the professional development level of tourism industry in 28 cities in the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (UAMRYR) from 2000 to 2017, the Dagum Gini coefficient and Kernel density estimation method are used to analyze the characteristics of spatial imbalance and to simulate the process of dynamic distribution evolution.The systematic GMM method is adopted to test its dynamic mechanism model. The results show that: (1) There is a spatial imbalance in the professional development of the tourism industry in the UAMRYR. The gap in the urban circle around Poyang Lake is the most obvious and the regional gap is the main source of the overall gap. (2) The absolute difference in the tourism specialization is gradually expanding within the entire UAMRYR and the three sub-groups and there is also an apparent polarization phenomena. (3) The spatial imbalance regarding tourism industry specialization is affected by multiple factors. The first-order lag, urbanization rate, regional economic development level and tourism resources, government intervention and the degree of opening to the outside world all have influences on the spatial imbalance for specialization of tourism industry in UAMRYR.There is a U-shaped curve relationship between regional economic development level and tourism specialization.
KeyWords:
tourism industry specialization; spatial imbalance; Dagum Gini coefficient; driving mechanism; urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River