Unveiling interprovincial geographic patterns of 5A-level tourism cultural ecosystem service flows and tourist preferences in China's ' s metacoupled systems
October 23, 2024 - Liu, Tao; Yu, Le; Liu, Jianguo; Xu, Zhenci; Chen, Xin; Wu, Hui; Zheng, Shijun; Zhao, Qiang; Gong, Peng
Print
EmailJournal or Book Title: APPLIED GEOGRAPHY
Volume/Issue: 172
Year Published: 2024
In the metacoupling Anthropocene, tourism-based culture ecosystem services flows (CESF) can establish nonmaterial bridges from the natural to the human system, even across vast geographic distances. However, there remains a knowledge gap regarding investigation of nature-related tourist travel patterns at geographic flow scales. To address this gap, we analyzed the intracoupling (within-province), pericoupling (adjacent-province), and telecoupling (distant-provincial) flow patterns using a sample of 143,681 5A attractions travel comments with Internet Protocol (IP) location data. Emotional preferences derived from travel reviews were then quantified using machine learning models in China's post-COVID-19 pandemic era. The results showed significant spatial differences in nature-based 5A-level CESF, China's telecoupling performance of CESF (0.34) is higher than pericoupling (0.20), but intracoupling (0.46) remains dominant. Tourists from northeastern provinces exhibited a preferences for telecoupling, while those from southwestern provinces showed intracoupling patterns. Forest ecosystems contribute nearly one-third (30.70%) of cultural services and are primarily characterized by intracoupling patterns. Sentiment analysis indicated that tourists' emotional preferences vary with travel distance, with long-distance tourists tending to appreciate indigenous cultures. Overall, this study provides new insights into investigating the dynamics of CESF, which could inform policy actions aimed at revitalizing the tourism sector.
DOI: 10.1016/j.apgeog.2024.103432
Type of Publication: Article