Geostatistical analysis of China inbound tourism spatial distribution structure

As an important method of GIS-based spatial analysis, geostatistics has been applied in a variety of scientific disciplines, which has expanded from natural phenomena to some socio-economic problems (metropolitan house price, land price), for its special power to reveal the spatial characteristics, structure and process of regionalized variables. China inbound tourism phenomenon can also be taken as regionalized variable as well, according to its random, structural characteristics. Yet the research existing about it paid more attention to the regional differences in individual and microscopic ways, rather than the macroscopic, totalistic, relative, dynamic characters and divergence of inbound tourism. This paper attempts to introduce geostatistics into inbound tourism research after interpreting the necessity and feasibility, and uses kriging method to analyze scales of inbound tourists of 321 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2007. By comparing the five semivariograms and contour maps of scales of inbound tourists, we come to the conclusion that Pearl River Delta Region, Yangzi River Delta Region and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Region have been the three centralized areas and diffusion sources of China inbound tourism, while they have different modes, directions and routes of diffusion. The pole diffusion has been altering to pole-axis diffusion gradually. Meanwhile, the gap of inbound tourism scales in eastern coastal regions of China has been reducing and the homogeneity increasing. Guangxi and Yunnan, which have been developing rapidly in recent years, together with Sichuan and Shanxi constitute the sub-highlands of inbound tourism, while the tourism sinking downfall of Central China has been more apparent. This paper not only displays the spatial distribution patterns of China inbound tourism, gives advice to the planning and tactics of regional inbound tourism development, but also expands the applicable scope of geostatistics and makes contributions to the diversity of tourism research methods.