A Study on Spatial Diffusion Direction and Paths of Tourist Flow in Sichuan Province

There is extensive literature about the spatial structure and evolution feature of tourist flow in China, but little has focused on the flow diffusion. Taking Sichuan province as a case study, this paper studies the spatial diffusion laws of tourist flow that has entered into regional center city (Chengdu) and lays stress on the diffusion direction and path. Tourists from other provinces or foreign countries often flow into Chengdu, the regional tourism center city, when they enter into Sichuan province, then diffuse to other districts or scenic spots. For tourists from Sichuan province, some of them may diffuse from Chengdu to other tourism cities or scenic spots, others often flow directly from the source market out of Chengdu or their temporary residence to the tourism cities or scenic spots. This paper studies the tourist flows diffusing from Chengdu but does not include those flows from other regions. Altogether 21 districts, cities and prefectures in Sichuan province have been selected as samples in this study. The paper firstly analyzes the tourism economic relationships among these administrative districts, then concludes the main spatial diffusion direction as northwest (Chengdu-Dujiangyan), southwest (Chengdu-Leshan) and northeast (Chengdu-Deyang-Mianyang). On this basis and the sampling research data, the spatial diffusion is induced into 14 paths. The spatial diffusion paths of sub-determined tourist flows were also analyzed in details in this paper. The result shows that age, sex, job, income and travelling purpose of different tourists may affect the decisions of tourism circuit, of which age, income and travelling purpose often play an important role.