Temporal and Spatial Coupling Characteristics of Tourism and Urbanization with Mechanism of High-Quality Development in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Abstract

The Chinese economy has entered the phase of high-quality development. Urbanization is an important driving factor in promoting the domestic economic cycle, while tourism is an emerging force in the development of urbanization. The convergence of these two factors will contribute to the high-quality development of regional economies. By constructing an evaluation index system of tourism development and urbanization level, 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration have been identified as the study area. The study has adopted the entropy method and the coupling coordination model to analyze the comprehensive development level of tourism and urbanization and the coupling coordination relationship between them from 2008 to 2018. The results show that the Yangtze River Delta presents a spatial pattern of orderly changes in the development of tourism, forming a spatial structure of “one pole and many centers”, with Shanghai as the core. In terms of spatial distribution, it generally presents the spatial trend characteristics of “high in the east and low in the west” in the east–west direction, and “protruding in the middle and lower at both ends” in the south–north direction. Coordination and interaction are steadily developing to a high level, with significant spatial dependence and spillover effects. Based on the research results, the study applies a new development vision to explore the coupling coordination high-quality development mechanism of tourism and urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta region; the corresponding policy recommendations are discussed.