The Influence of Tourism’s Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity on the Urban–Rural Relationship: A Case Study of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Urban Agglomeration, China

Abstract

The urban–rural imbalance, a social problem shared globally, is seeing a turnaround as a result of changes in production patterns. Tourism can not only provide employment but also drive the development of related industries, which is an effective measure to solve the urban–rural dichotomy. Against this background, we take the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration as a sample, uses new urbanization and rural revitalization as a criterion for measuring urban and rural development, and quantifies the degree of urban–rural coordinated (URC) value in the BTH urban agglomeration from 2010 to 2019 by using the coupled coordination degree model. After that, the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model is used to analyze the impact of tourism on the URC. The results show that: (1) there are large gaps within the BTH urban agglomeration in terms of urban and rural development, and there may be a threshold effect for the URC; (2) the impact of tourism on the URC shows spatiotemporal heterogeneity and the highest degree of diversity is high-quality intangible cultural heritage resources; (3) the density of highways exerts a negative impact on the URC. Finally, based on the findings, tourism is as an anchoring point to provide policy guidance for sustainable urban–rural development.