Study on the characters of the regional disparity in Chinese inbound tourism:1980-2006

Theil coefficient was used to measure the temporal changes of inter-provincial,inter-regional and intra-regional disparity in Chinese inbound tourism from 1980-2006.The results suggested that regional gap in Chinese inbound tourism from 1980-2006 could be summarized as follows:Firstly,on the whole,regional disparity in Chinese tourism became smaller and smaller.Secondly,intra-regional disparity was larger than that of inter-regional.Intra-regional disparity was the main contributor to inter-provincial tourism disparity.Thirdly,eastern intra-regional disparity and inter-regional disparity decreased sharply.Fourthly,western intra-regional disparity was smaller and fluctuates slightly.