Influence of China's Urbanization on Tourism Consumption of Rural Residents

Since reform and opening in 1978,China's urbanization rate has been continuously improved,urbanization is the inherent growth power of China's economy. Similarly,urbanization is an important force to promote the development of tourism economy and tourism consumption. The tourism consumption behavior of rural residents is different from that of the western as a result of the social and economic transformation of rural Chinese,the dual structure in urban and rural economy,and characteristics of the rural issues. With the progresses of urbanization level and tourism industry,and the development of integration of urban and rural,the research on mutual relationship between urbanization and tourism consumption of rural residents has a great significance. The research constructs the theoretical system of tourism consumption of rural residents according to the foreign research results and China's national conditions. Therefore,in this paper,based on the background of urbanization and the characteristics of tourism industry,we use the proportion of urban population to total population to represent urbanization,and tourism economic sequence data of National Statistics,analyze the influence of China's urbanization on tourism consumption of rural residents from the theoretical and empirical side.Firstly,combined with the analysis of the connotation of urbanization and consumption theory,urbanization can through four effects,i. e.,the sensitivity to income,the demonstration of urban residents consumption,the ratchet of traditional consumption habit,and the prevention of income uncertainty,influence on tourism consumption of rural residents. The urbanization not only has a direct impact on tourism consumption of rural residents,also an indirect effect through the four channels. Secondly,the paper employs the ADF unit root test,Engel-Granger Two-step Co-integration Model and Granger Causality Model to empirical examine the long-term equilibrium and causal effect relationship between urbanization and tourism consumption,the results show: there is a long-term stable co-integration between urbanization and tourism consumption of rural residents,urbanization is in the granger causality with tourism consumption growth during the period from 1994 to 2011. The regression models show there are high correlation between urbanization and four intermediate variables,and between the variables and tourism consumption of rural residents. The paper uses a multiple regression equation to explain the effect of urbanization on tourism consumption of rural residents. The effects of sensitivity and ratchet show significant positive correlation between tourism consumption and urbanization,and the sensitive effect is stronger. The effect of prevention plays a strong negative effect on tourism consumption,and the demonstration effect is not significant. The regression model shows urbanization is the important force to stimulate tourism consumption of rural residents. We must be vigilant with the acceleration of urbanization,the income gap between urban and rural residents is widening and the social security system is not perfect,which enhance the uncertainty of rural residents' income and inhibit the further expansion of tourism consumption scale. The negative effects will offset the positive effects,as a result,tourism consumption will probably remain stagnant or even retrogress. The paper puts forward three countermeasures as follows: first,we should improve the quality of urbanization, and promote the income and consumption level of rural residents,and develop tourism market of rural residents with gradually classification. Second,the construction of rural social security system is strengthened to reduce the risk of tourism consumption in order to promote the tourism consumption fairness. Third,we should improve the educational level of rural residents,and strengthen the positive publicity to the tourism consumption,and change the one-sided understanding of tourism consumption,and cultivate good tourism consumption habits. With the deepening of new urbanization,the urbanization will also release greater growth potential to China's tourism consumption of rural residents and tourism economic development. Because of the complexity of urbanization,the rural residents and the tourism industry,and data quality problems,this study may have certain limitations. We therefore remain cautious about the conclusions of the study.