Co-evolution and disparities between inbound tourism flow and air transport network in Southwest China
入境旅游流与航空运输网络协同演化及差异分析——以西南地区为例

One of the typical characteristics of inbound tourist behavior is that tourists often travel for a long distance in the tourism destination and choose efficient and convenient transportation mode.Air transport,a timely,convenient,efficient and comfortable mode,is playing an increasingly important role in inbound tourists' travel.As a result,airport becomes an important and basic condition for cities to develop inbound tourism industry.Improvement in air transport condition can enhance the possibility of inbound tourists' entry.Meanwhile,growth of inbound tourist flow also results in increasing demand for air transport,which in turn improves the flow efficiency of inbound tourists. Although there is a close relationship between inbound tourism industry and air transport,there have been few researches on disparities and co-evolution between inbound tourist flow and air transport network.This paper firstly analyzes the mechanism of spatial evolution between inbound tourist flow and air transport network,then constructs mechanism model of co-evolution,and studies the disparities and characteristics of co-evolution from 1999 to 2009,which concentrates on the network feature of flows,spatial structure,and node linkage. The conclusions imply that inbound tourist flow and air passenger flow are increasing in Southwest China,and there is a strong correlation(Pearson=0.963).The change characteristics and trends of spatial structure are consistent.In addition,there is a strong coupling relationship in the network node linkage.But Tibet has no obvious interrelation between inbound tourism flow and air passenger flow,and its correlation level is low,while other areas have significant interrelation along with a great internal difference.Therefore,air transport condition in Southwest China should be improved based on the spatial dynamic change of inbound tourism flow.Besides air transport links should be enhanced between provinces to improve flow efficiency of inbound tourism flow and comprehensive tourism benefit.