Agent-based simulation of the spatial differentiation of the tourism industry in China

The research concerning the spatial differentiation of tourism industry is an important content in the field of tourism geography and even the field of human geography, which has since received widespread attention in the academic circles. However, the previous researches not only ignore the potential impact of culture on tourism development but also fail to explore the different driving factors under different developmental stages of tourism industry.Hence, on the one hand, the study puts forward the major driving factors affecting the spatial differentiation of Chinese tourism industry, namely, the spatial differentiation of tourism industry is primarily driven by tourism resources in China between the end of the 1970 s and the beginning of the 1990 s. With the sustainable development of tourism industry, tourism market played a significant role in promoting tourism development from the mid-1990 s to 2000 s. From the mid-2000 s to now, due to the combined impacts of tourism resources and tourism market,culture has played a guide role for tourism development in China. On the other hand, through introducing the method of agent-based simulation, designing the simulation system of the spatial distribution, as well as constructing the simulation model of tourists' behavior, this paper explores formation mechanism and dynamic process concerning the spatial distribution of Chinese tourism industry, and then analyses the spatial differentiation of tourism industry in China driven by tourism resources, tourism market and culture respectively. Results mainly show that tourism resources are the fundamental factor of the spatial differentiation of Chinese tourism industry at the early stage of tourism development. Therefore, the most developed tourism areas are mainly situated in the excellent tourism cities such as Beijing, Hangzhou, Xi'an and Guilin during this period. In fact these areas also possess plenty of tourism resources. As the development of market economy and the improvement of infrastructure in China, tourism resources have provided the basic and necessary condition for tourism development, but tourism market has increasingly become the major driving force for modern tourism industry development, particularly for location and traffic conditions. To some extent, the improvement in location and traffic conditions is very helpful in ameliorating the regional difference of tourism development that is mainly resulted from tourism resources. To be specific, for some regions with rich tourism resources, as mentioned above, the tourism industry has been further developed, and more importantly, the developed tourism areas are clustered around some regions with the developed economy and favorable geographical conditions, particularly in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Bohai Rim and some central and provincial cities. Finally, while the spatial differentiation of tourism industry in China is driven by the influences of culture, Chinese tourism industry may continue to be affected by tourism resources and tourism market. With the further development of modern tourism industry, the impact of culture on tourism development in China may be superimposed on the inertia effect of tourism resources and tourism market.