Edited by: Long Cheng, Southeast University, China
Reviewed by: Gobind Herani, Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education, Pakistan; Xu Cuirong, Qingdao University, China
This article was submitted to Environmental health and Exposome, a section of the journal Frontiers in Public Health
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Tourism ecosystem health is key to high-quality tourism development. China is now promoting sustainable development and high-quality transformation and upgrading of regional tourism; thus, the research on tourism ecosystem health is of practical significance. Based on the DPSIR model, an evaluation index system of tourism ecosystem health in China was constructed. Then the entropy weight method, spatial autocorrelation analysis, Markov chain analysis, and quantile regression were used to explore the dynamic evolution characteristics and driving factors of tourism ecosystem health in China from 2011 to 2020. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) The tourism ecosystem health in China showed an M-shaped fluctuation process as a whole, with significant spatial correlation and spatial difference. (2) There was a “path-dependent” and “self-locking” effect on the type transfer of tourism ecosystem health, and the type transfer was mainly between adjacent types in successive transfers, with the probability of downward transfer higher than upward transfer, and the geospatial background played a significant role in its dynamic evolution process. (3) In provinces with low tourism ecosystem health type, the negative effect of technological innovation capacity was more significant, and the influence coefficient of the positive effect of tourism environmental regulation and information technology level was larger, while in provinces with high tourism ecosystem health type, the negative effect of tourism industry agglomeration was more significant, and the influence coefficient of the positive effect of tourism industry structure and tourism land-use scale was larger.
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The tourism business, like other industries, has a paradoxical connection with the ecological environment due to the dual industrial qualities of environmental dependence and resource consumption (
Rapport, a Canadian scholar, introduced the concept of ecosystem health—which connects human health, human activity, and ecosystem change—into the field of ecosystems in 1979 (
To sum up, the existing studies have comprehensively examined tourism ecosystem health. They have produced a variety of findings that may be utilized as references in this paper. However, there are still several issues that need to be explored. First, there was broad agreement that the PSR model, the DPSIR model, or the VORSH model could be used to construct a tourism ecosystem health evaluation index system, but the coverage of specific indicators needed to be expanded and strengthened. Second, most previous studies used the traditional panel data model, which conforms to the normal distribution conditional mean, to identify the factors influencing tourism ecosystem health. Consequently, the possibility of different influencing factors in different regions of the tourism ecosystem health level was ignored. In addition, given the higher strategic value of sustainable tourism development and high-quality transformation and upgrading, little attention has been given to the spatial correlation and dynamic transfer of tourism ecosystem health at the national scale in the results of the available study, which are mostly focused on the dimensions of specific areas and economic zones. This paper attempts to deepen the previous research further based on these three deficiencies. Therefore, we selected 30 provinces (excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) in China as the research subjects, then constructed a tourism ecosystem health evaluation index system based on the DPSIR model and used the entropy method to assess that health from 2011 to 2020. Meanwhile, the dynamic evolution characteristics of the tourism ecosystem health were explored through the entropy weight method, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and Markov chain analysis. Moreover, the panel quantile regression model was used to identify the driving forces behind the shifting trends in tourism ecosystem health under various quantile conditions. The research findings of this paper are intended to comprehensively understand the dynamic evolution characteristics and driving factors of tourism ecosystem health in China and provide a theoretical basis and decision-making reference for provinces with different levels of tourism ecosystem health so that it can promote the coordinated development of tourism and the eco-environment.
The subjective assignment approach introduces the impact of human factors. However, the entropy weighting method uses the original information of the indicators as the foundation for assigning weights, which can adequately reflect the significance of each indicator in the comprehensive index. The entropy weight method calculated the evaluation index weight of tourism ecosystem health. The following are the specific steps for implementation (
The first step is to standardize the evaluation indexes.
In Formulas (1) and (2),
The second step is to calculate the weight. In Formulas (3) and (4),
The third step is a comprehensive evaluation index of tourism ecosystem health (
Integrating the results of the actual measurement of tourism ecosystem health in China and the synthesis of existing studies (28, 33), the tourism ecosystem health of 30 provinces in China was divided into four types: non-healthy level, sub-healthy level, generally healthy level, and very healthy level (
Tourism ecosystem health level standard.
Health type | I | II | III | IV |
Health value | (0,0.30] | (0.30,0.40] | (0.40,0.55] | (0.55,1] |
Global spatial autocorrelation analysis, frequently measured by the global Moran's I index, is used to evaluate the overall spatial dependency between different geographical areas (
In Formula (8),
The Markov chain, a transition matrix and the simplest stochastic model has been extensively used for state change studies at various spatial scales (
In Formula (9),
To examine the relationship between the probability of transfer of tourism ecosystem health types and neighboring provinces, the spatial Markov chain analysis incorporated the spatial lag factors into the analytical framework based on the traditional Markov chain analysis (
In Formula (10),
Koenker and Basett proposed the quantile regression model to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional regression method, which can only obtain the average influence of the explanatory variables on the dependent variable (
In Formula (11) and (12),
In Formula (13), ρτrepresents the quantile loss function;
Based on the current state of China's tourism industry and data availability, six indicators were selected to quantify the factors driving the change process in the spatial and temporal patterns of tourism ecosystem health under multiple factors. These indicators include tourism industry structure, tourism industry agglomeration, tourism environmental regulation, information technology level, technological innovation capacity, and tourism land-use scale (
Variables and explanations of tourism ecosystem health influencing indicators.
Tourism industry structure | TIS | Tourism industry structure rationalization index |
Tourism industry agglomeration | TIA | Location quotient |
Tourism environmental regulation | TER | Cost of pollution control/tourism revenue |
Information technology level | INFO | Internet broadband access users |
Technological innovation capacity | TIC | R&D expenditure |
Tourism land-use scale | TLS | Tourism revenue/provincial area |
The PSR model served as the foundation for the DPSIR model, which was first proposed and utilized by the European Environment Agency (EEA) to provide a more thorough understanding of the interactions and feedback mechanisms between human activities and the biological environment (
Tourism ecosystem health evaluation index system.
Driving force (D) | Economic development | Per capita GDP (yuan) | Positive |
Disposable income per resident (yuan) | Positive | ||
Social life | Natural population growth rate (%) | Negative | |
Urbanization rate (%) | Negative | ||
Tourism demand | Growth rate of tourists (%) | Negative | |
Pressure (P) | Ecological environment | SO2 emission per unit area (t/hm2) | Negative |
Sewage discharge density (m3/hm2) | Negative | ||
Social life | Per capita daily water consumption (m3/person) | Negative | |
Population density (person/hm2) | Negative | ||
Tourism reception | Tourist traffic pressure (person times/km2) | Negative | |
Visitor density (person times/hm2) | Negative | ||
State (S) | Ecological environment | Proportion of good air quality days (%) | Positive |
Percentage of forest cover (%) | Positive | ||
Per capita arable land (hectare/person) | Positive | ||
Tourism resources | Tourism resources density (units/million km2) | Negative | |
Tourism resource taste (%) | Positive | ||
Tourism facilities | Density of star-rated hotels (units/million km2) | Negative | |
Travel agency density (units/million km2) | Negative | ||
Tourism economy | Domestic tourism revenue (billion yuan) | Positive | |
Tourism foreign exchange earnings (USD billion) | Positive | ||
Impact (I) | Ecological environment | Decline rate of ecological land (%) | Negative |
Sudden environmental incidents | Rate of increase in sudden environmental incidents (%) | Negative | |
Economic structure | Proportion of total tourism revenue in GDP (%) | Positive | |
Proportion of tertiary industry in GDP (%) | Positive | ||
Response (R) | Government regulation and control | Proportion of environmental investment in GDP (%) | Positive |
Number of college students per 100000 population (%) | Positive | ||
Environmental governance | Urban domestic sewage treatment rate (%) | Positive | |
Harmless domestic waste treatment rate (%) | Positive |
The data in this paper were mainly derived from the “China Statistical Yearbook”, “China Tourism Statistical Yearbook”, “China Culture and Tourism Yearbook”, the yearbooks of each province, and the Statistical Bulletin of National Economic and Social Development of each province. Some missing data was supplemented using the linear interpolation method. Following data collection, panel data for 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020 were obtained.
According to Formula (1)–(7), the tourism ecosystem health of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020 was evaluated based on the constructed evaluation index system of tourism ecosystem health, and the trend of change was plotted (
The trend of tourism ecosystem health in China from 2011 to 2020.
The kernel density of the Gauss kernel function, depicted by Matlab R2011b software in
The Kernel density estimation of tourism ecosystem health in China.
According to Formula (8), combined with the measured value of tourism ecosystem health, using the Rook spatial weight matrix (Hainan and Guangdong were set as neighbors to avoid the “island phenomenon”), the spatial autocorrelation of tourism ecosystem health in China is tested and analyzed, and the global Moran's I index test results were calculated using Stata 16.0 software (
Global Moran's I index from 2011 to 2020.
Moran's I | 0.298 | 0.305 | 0.254 | 0.230 | 0.240 | 0.224 | 0.190 | 0.176 | 0.192 | 0.133 |
Z-scores | 2.819 | 2.879 | 2.472 | 2.262 | 2.337 | 2.219 | 1.927 | 1.808 | 1.957 | 1.439 |
0.002 | 0.002 | 0.007 | 0.012 | 0.010 | 0.013 | 0.027 | 0.035 | 0.025 | 0.075 |
With the help of ArcGIS 10.2 software, the spatial distribution map of tourism ecosystem health in 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2020 was drawn, and the tourism ecosystem health was divided into four types, which were non-healthy level, sub-healthy level, generally healthy level and very healthy level from low to high (
Spatial distribution patterns of tourism ecosystem health.
This section used the Markov chain method to investigate the state transition of provinces in the distribution of tourism ecosystem health. It attempted to explore the long-term dynamic change trend of the differences in tourism ecosystem health between the various provinces in China. According to the type classification, the tourism ecosystem health of provinces can be discretized into four state-level types. Namely, non-healthy level (0, 0.30], sub-healthy level (0.30, 0.40], generally healthy level (0.30, 0.40] and very healthy level (0.55, 1], the completeness intervals of these four state types can be represented by k = I, II, III, and IV, respectively. The definition of an upward transfer is from a low level to a high level, and the definition of a downward transfer is from a high level to a low level.
To further understand the dynamic evolution trend of tourism ecosystem health in China, the Markov transfer matrix of tourism ecosystem health in China was obtained using Matlab R2011b software (
Markov transfer probability matrix for tourism ecosystem health types in China from 2011 to 2020.
I | 116 | 0.7241 | 0.2241 | 0.0431 | 0.0086 |
II | 101 | 0.1188 | 0.8020 | 0.0594 | 0.0198 |
III | 29 | 0.0000 | 0.2759 | 0.7241 | 0.0000 |
IV | 24 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 1.0000 |
The issue of spatial correlation is disregarded in the traditional Markov chain approach because it presumes that regions are independent of each other. This paper incorporated spatial lag into the traditional Markov chain analysis to investigate the neighborhood's influence and the probability that it will change among convergent groups. The results of the spatial Markov chain transition probability matrix of tourism ecosystem health in China from 2011 to 2020 are presented in
Spatial Markov probability matrix for tourism ecosystem health types in China from 2011 to 2020.
I | I | 66 | 0.7273 | 0.1818 | 0.0758 | 0.0152 |
II | 22 | 0.0000 | 0.9091 | 0.0000 | 0.0909 | |
III | 1 | 0.0000 | 1.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | |
IV | 1 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 1.0000 | |
II | I | 40 | 0.7250 | 0.2750 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
II | 57 | 0.1579 | 0.7895 | 0.0526 | 0.0000 | |
III | 4 | 0.0000 | 0.5000 | 0.5000 | 0.0000 | |
IV | 15 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 1.0000 | |
III | I | 8 | 0.8750 | 0.1250 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
II | 16 | 0.0625 | 0.7500 | 0.1875 | 0.0000 | |
III | 24 | 0.0000 | 0.2083 | 0.7917 | 0.0000 | |
IV | 8 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 1.0000 | |
IV | I | 2 | 0.0000 | 1.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
II | 6 | 0.3333 | 0.6667 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | |
III | 0 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | |
IV | 0 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
The issue of spatial correlation is disregarded in the traditional Markov chain approach because it presumes that regions are independent of each other. This paper incorporated spatial lag into the traditional Markov chain analysis to investigate the neighborhood's influence and the probability that it will change among convergent groups. The results of the spatial Markov chain transition probability matrix of tourism ecosystem health in China from 2011 to 2020 are presented in
Through comparison with
In order to ensure the smoothness of the panel data time series and reduce heteroscedasticity in this paper, natural logarithms were taken as all non-percentage variables. At the same time, this paper employed both the LLC test, the Breitung test (which assumes a common unit root process), the IPS test, the Fisher-ADF test, and the Fisher-PP test (which assumes an individual unit root process) to probe the unit root properties of the study variables so that it could avoid problems such as multicollinearity and spurious regressions. According to the estimation results, every variable strongly rejected the null hypothesis that the panel had a unit root at a 1% significance level, indicating that the panel data were smooth and could be suitable for further regression analysis. This paper selected five representative quantiles for analysis, including 10, 25, 50, 75, and 90%. The Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method was adopted to estimate the driving factors of tourism ecosystem health to avoid possible endogeneity. The estimation results were presented in Columns (1) to (6) of
The quantile regression model estimation results of driving factors of tourism ecosystem health.
ln TIS | 0.037* (1.92) | 0.125*** (3.49) | 0.084*** (4.87) | 0.059*** (3.25) | 0.064*** (2.73) | 0.131** (3.16) |
ln TIA | −0.101*** (−5.52) | −0.008*** (−0.22) | −0.010*** (−0.59) | −0.023*** (−1.24) | −0.084*** (−3.49) | −0.103 (−2.45) |
TER | 0.003*** (3.97) | 0.003*** (0.85) | 0.016*** (0.81) | −0.003 (−0.19) | −0.003 (−1.03) | −0.005 (−1.09) |
ln TIC | −0.015*** (−4.42) | −0.020*** (−1.67) | −0.012 (−2.20) | −0.010*** (−1.70) | 0.003 (−0.04) | 0.007 (0.48) |
ln INFO | 0.016*** (3.69) | 0.018*** (1.32) | 0.012 (1.78) | 0.013** (1.89) | 0.004 (0.37) | 0.002*** (0.13) |
ln TLS | 0.070*** (12.41) | 0.034*** (6.26) | 0.033*** (12.31) | 0.030*** (10.89) | 0.035*** (9.63) | 0.033*** (5.18) |
As shown in
The results of the quantile regression of tourism industry structure (lnTIS) showed an M-shaped pattern, which was always positive and significant, indicating that the impact of tourism industry structure on tourism ecosystem health varies at different quantiles. The government should therefore transform the tourism economy and promote the integration of tourism industries to enhance tourism ecosystem health. It was important to note that the coefficient of influence of the tourism industry structure on the high quantile was relatively large. Therefore, the government should pay more attention to and strengthen the upgrading of the tourism industry structure in provinces with high tourism ecosystem health, thereby reducing duplicate construction and resource-consuming projects and increasing low-consumption, high-quality service projects, thereby promoting sustainable tourism development in these provinces.
At the 10, 50, 75, and 90% quantiles, the absolute value of the coefficient of tourism industry agglomeration (lnTIA) had an increasing trend, indicating that tourism industry agglomeration was the main obstacle factor for provinces with high tourism ecosystem health in China, that is, the higher the level of tourism ecosystem health, the greater the pressure of tourism industry agglomeration on the ecosystem. Consequently, our results suggested that strengthening the centralization of resource use and the use of large-scale pollution control infrastructure in provinces with high tourism ecosystem health was one of the most effective ways to increase the resilience of sustainable tourism development in such provinces.
Tourism environmental regulation (TER) significantly affected tourism ecosystem health at the lower quantiles, but this had no significant marginal impact as the quantiles increased. This may be because of the spatial mismatch between supply and demand in China's tourism resources and natural ecological background. The provinces with higher tourism ecosystem health types are generally more market-oriented regions, where the market itself can achieve an efficient allocation of resources through competitive mechanisms, price mechanisms, and supply and demand mechanisms. Too much macro-regulation is not conducive to forming environmental-economic systems such as green capital markets, green credit, ecological compensation, and other environmental-economic systems.
The influence of technological innovation capacity (lnTIC) on tourism ecosystem health was negative, with a non-significant negative effect on technological innovation capacity at the higher quartiles (75% and 90%). All other quartiles showed a significant adverse effect at the 1% level. The absolute value of the coefficient of technological innovation capacity increased as the quantile decreased, with the negative effect reaching a maximum at the 10% quantile. According to our findings, the main obstacle factor for provinces with low tourism ecosystem health in China was a lack of technological innovation capacity.
As the quantile changed, the value of the coefficient of information level (INFO) changed significantly, with the coefficients for the first 50% of the quantile being significantly larger than those for the second 50% of the quantile. From the coefficients, the degree of impact of information infrastructure and information technology consumption was more substantial for provinces with low tourism ecosystem health. In contrast, for provinces with high tourism ecosystem health, the effect of increasing informatization was diminished.
Tourism land-use scale positively affected tourism ecosystem health, with an inverted N-shaped trend. The panel quantile regression results showed that the tourism land-use scale had a significant and large positive effect on tourism ecosystem health at the high quantile. However, its positive effect decreased as the tourism land-use scale increased at this quantile. Despite the problems of waste of production factors such as land and capital and the excessive emission of pollutants in the process of the use of tourism land, the under-utilized tourism land has crowded out ecological land space. The ecosystem organization structure is under external stress. However, the resistance to external interference and self-repair functions of ecosystem services does not exceed the reasonable carrying capacity of the tourism environment.
Changes in quantile regression coefficients for tourism ecosystem health.
Based on the DPSIR model, we systematically constructed an evaluation index system to measure China's tourism ecosystem health. Then the dynamic evolution characteristics and driving factors of tourism ecosystem health in China from 2011 to 2020 were analyzed with the entropy weight method, spatial autocorrelation analysis, Markov chain analysis, and quantile regression. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) During the ten years from 2011 to 2020, the tourism ecosystem health in China showed an M-shaped fluctuation process as a whole, with three distinct stages of rapid increase (2011–2012), slow decrease (2012–2015), and fluctuating development (2015–2020). The kernel density exhibited a right-trailing phenomenon and multiple peaks, indicating that the gap between China's tourism ecosystem health and the average has widened and that there was a specific gradient of differences. Regarding spatial differentiation, the tourism ecosystem health in China was significantly spatially correlated, characterized by clustered and contiguous development, with significant regional differences in distribution. (2) There was a “path-dependent” and “self-locking” effect on the type transfer of the tourism ecosystem health in China. Type transfer generally occurs between adjacent types in successive transfers, while the probability of cross-type transfer is small, and the probability of downward transfer is higher than upward transfer. In addition, geospatial patterns played a significant role in the dynamic evolution process of tourism ecosystem health. Specifically, the probability of the state-level type of the province transferring downward would increase if it was adjacent to a province with a low tourism ecosystem health level, while the probability of the state-level type of the province transferring upward would increase if it was adjacent to a province with a high tourism ecosystem health level. (3) The tourism ecosystem health in China was driven by a combination of factors, including tourism industry structure, tourism industry agglomeration, tourism environmental regulation, information technology level, technological innovation capacity, and tourism land-use scale. Moreover, in provinces with low tourism ecosystem health type, the dampening effect of technological innovation capacity was more significant, and the influence coefficient of the positive marginal effect of tourism environmental regulation and information technology level was larger, while in provinces with high tourism ecosystem health type, the dampening effect of tourism industry agglomeration was more significant, and the influence coefficient of the positive marginal effect of tourism industry structure and tourism land-use scale was larger.
Under the new development concept of “innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing”, a systematic and in-depth study on the dynamic evolution of tourism ecosystem health in China and its driving factors are of great significance in promoting the sustainable development and high-quality transformation and upgrading of regional tourism. The main contributions of this paper are listed as follows: (1) The dynamic transfer process and pattern of tourism ecosystem health in each province of China from 2000 to 2015 were analyzed using the spatial Markov chain analysis, which can visually reveal the heterogeneity of the “spatial spillover” effect of tourism ecosystem health and the influence of geospatial background. (2) In contrast to the idealistic treatment model of mean regression, the panel quantile regression model emphasized the heterogeneity of driving factors in the context of various tourism ecosystem health types. Its empirical findings could more accurately reflect the actual situation. Thus, the results can provide a research methodological reference for a more comprehensive, systematic, and dynamic exploration of the driving mechanisms of tourism ecosystem health in similar areas, especially in developing countries, in the future. (3) The research scale was reduced to the provincial level, and the heterogeneity and regularity of tourism ecosystem health at the regional scale could be better explained, providing empirical support for local governments to formulate appropriate tourism ecosystem health strategies for different provinces.
The findings of this paper have important policy implications: (1) The government and tourism authorities should give due consideration to regional synergy and integrated management in tourism cooperation and development and tourism environmental protection policies as a means of reducing the constraints and impacts of spatial effects on tourism ecosystem health, reducing spatial differences in tourism ecosystem health between provinces, and achieving the goal of regional coordination and sustainable development of the tourism industry. (2) More attention should be paid to the dynamic evolution of tourism ecosystem health in different provinces, especially in provinces with a “generally healthy” neighborhood type, to avoid the risk of downward transfer resulting from the crude growth of their tourism economies. (3) The provinces with high tourism ecosystem health must make efforts to accelerate the process of allocating tourism industry elements, continuously promote structural reform on the supply side of tourism, guide tourism development and transformation and upgrading with the concept of ecological priority and green development, and actively cultivate new low-carbon and green tourism industries. Meanwhile, actions must be taken to initiate the allocation of land resources in ways that are compatible with the direction that the tourism industry is going as well as through intensive utilization for sustainable development. For provinces with low tourism ecosystem health, the research and development of tourism pollution treatment and prevention technologies should be focused on further improving tourism ecosystem health. Additionally, regional tourism ecosystem health policies should be continuously improved. Tourism ecosystem health should be promoted through new media platforms to encourage green travel and low-carbon consumption among tourists.
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
FL: conceptualization, software, data curation, and writing-original draft preparation. HR: methodology and writing-reviewing. XZ: editing and visualization. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
This research was funded by the Humanities and Social Sciences Project of Shandong Province (Grant No. 2021-YYGL-33).
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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