Expanding and deepening tourism cooperation between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries and regions is an important part of the joint construction of the BRI, which has important strategic significance for promoting global economic growth and humanistic exchanges. After four stages of development, including the establishment of pillars and beams, fluctuating development, epidemic control and market recovery, tourism cooperation along the BRI has achieved great progress in infrastructure “hard connectivity”, rules and standards “soft connectivity”, as well as people-to-people “heart connectivity”. At the same time, the scale of BRI tourism market has significantly expanded, industrial investment has continued to grow, unified brands have gradually formed, security has gradually strengthened, and cooperation platforms have been enriched. In the future, BRI tourism cooperation will not only encounter new opportunities for deepening transportation connectivity, digital economy and green development, but also face challenges such as complicated external environment, unbalanced regional development and weak global soft connectivity. We should have the vision of building BRI tourism community of shared destiny which has interconnected facilities, linked standards, and integrated cultures, as well as a high level of openness, industrial resilience and security. In order to realize the vision, we should continue to build a seamless three-dimensional tourism transportation network, accelerate the construction of smooth linkage and docking mechanism for tourism policies, continue to expand the platform for civil exchanges, promote the construction of a new pattern of all-round opening-up, explore the construction of a multi-level tourism resilience system, and work together to guarantee the multi-dimensional prevention and control of security issues.

With the construction of the Belt and Road, international tourism, as an important part of tourism and international service trade, has become an important carrier to promote economic development and cultural exchanges along the Belt and Road. This paper constructs an index to measure the development level of international tourism, analyzes the evolution trend of international tourism along the Belt and Road from 2008 to 2019, and explores the influencing factors and their spatial differences by applying GTWR model. The results show that: (1) The international tourism along the Belt and Road presents a slow decline and then a gradual increase, and the development gap first expands significantly and then narrows slowly. The Belt and Road Initiative has effectively slowed down the decline of the international tourism development level, and plays a vital role in narrowing the development gap. (2) The development of international tourism along the Belt and Road presents a spatial pattern of “high in China, Russia and Poland, high in the belt of West Asia-Southeast Asia and low in inland areas”. (3) The key driving factor for the development of international tourism along the Belt and Road is aviation system level. The core driving factors are the level of economic development and the ability to attract foreign investment, followed by foreign-trade dependence, electricity and communication system level, and the government regulatory quality. (4) The main influencing factors in different regions vary dramatically: aviation system level and the ability to attract foreign investment are core driving factors in all regions. The main driving factors of the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, Macao are the level of economic development, the level of network and communication systems; Mongolia and Russia, Central Asia, West Asia and North Africa are the level of economic development, foreign-trade dependence and the level of electricity system; Southeast Asia and South Asia are foreign-trade dependence, government regulatory quality, network and communication system level; Central and Eastern Europe are the level of economic development, the government regulatory quality, electricity and network system level.

Entity industry is an important driver for human development, and outbound tourism is one of the important indicators to measure human development level. However, the relationship between the entity industry, outbound tourism and human development level has not been confirmed yet. This paper selects 44 countries along the Belt and Road as samples, takes the Human Development Index (HDI) as the explanatory variable, the outbound tourism rate as the explained variable, the Entity Industrial Index as the control variable, and the Price Level Index as the regulating variable, adopts the dynamic panel model to analyze the mechanism of human development level on outbound tourism under the influence of real industry. The study found a significant correlation between the outbound tourism rate and the above variables, and indicated that both the Human Development Index and the Entity Industrial Index have a significant positive impact on the outbound tourism rate, while the reciprocal of the Price Level Index (relative tourism prices) has a certain negative impact on the outbound tourism rate. The results show that the development of entity industries, the stability of market prices and the improvement of human development level in the countries along the Belt and Road can enhance the willingness of residents to travel abroad. The study has important theoretical and practical impications for the countries along the Belt and Road to firmly promote sustainable cooperation in entity economy, livelihood industries and tourism exchanges.

Scientific understanding of the key areas and development trends of tourism safety research under the Belt and Road Initiative is of great significance for effectively promoting the construction of tourism corridors and fostering connectivity among countries amidst unprecedented profound changes. Using the CiteSpace bibliometric tool, this paper visualized and analyzed 488 domestic and international papers on tourism safety research under the Belt and Road Initiative, sourced from the CNKI and Web of Science databases. The results showed that tourism safety research under the Belt and Road Initiative has undergone three stages: The initial exploration period, the rapid development period, and the COVID-19 epidemic impact period. The research topics include the situation of tourism safety risks, characteristics of tourism safety accidents, investment security in the tourism industry, and cooperation in tourism safety governance. Existing research presents a rich exploration of public safety risks outside the tourism industry, an obvious geographical concentration in the tourism safety accident research, insufficient breadth in tourism investment safety research, and a lack of quantitative research on tourism safety governance. Based on the theoretical development and practical needs of tourism safety under the Belt and Road Initiative, future research should pay attention to the exploration of the multilateral interaction of tourism security from an international perspective, build an analytical framework covering multiple stakeholders, promote the innovative application of dynamic tracking technology, and improve the construction of a theoretical system for tourism safety. This will provide a useful reference for promoting the development of safety in the tourism industry under the Belt and Road Initiative.

As a major outbound tourism country, the changes in Chinese tourists’ online attention to overseas tourist destinations serve as a crucial reference for post-COVID-19 tourism recovery strategies. This study focuses on the 60 countries parcipating in the Belt and Road Initiative and their 96 tourist destinations. Employing Baidu Index for monitoring attention dynamics, coupled with Singular Value Decomposition, Wavelet Analysis, and Geodetector, we analyze the spatio-temporal characteristics and associated impacts of the outbound tourism online attention. The findings are as follows: (1) At the post-COVID-19 stage, there is an overall increasing trend in Chinese tourists’ attention towards destinations, particularly to countries like Italy, Egypt, South Korea, Russia, and Greece. (2) The online attention mainly exhibits three spatio-temporal patterns: routine attention with a 7-day cycle, long-period attention with a 48-day cycle, and short-term sudden attention with a 3-day cycle. These patterns significantly interact in shaping destination preferences, with long-term attention exerting a leading influence on the spatio-temporal patterns of other types. (3) The differen- tiation of spatio-temporal characteristics of tourism online attention is jointly influenced by the disposable time of Chinese tourists and their positive response to international tourism market promotions. Additionally, destination countries’ public health policies, economic recovery pace, sustainability of tourism infrastructure, and Sino-foreign bilateral relations also impact the cyclical fluctuations and geographical distribution of online attention. This study deepens the understanding of post-COVID-19 outbound tourism online attention characteristics and reveals the synergistic enhancement relationships between different attention types. These insights provide data support for developing differentiated international tourism cooperation strategies, thereby facilitating the recovery of the tourism industry.

Adventure tourism products characterised by meeting tourists’ needs for personalised and in-depth experiences are highly favoured in the intensive competition of island tourism destinations. Based on the three-pillar model of the overall framework of adventure tourism research, the article explores the heterogeneity of Chinese outbound tourists’ choice preferences, willingness to pay, and choice behaviours of island adventure tourism products using the choice experiment method, taking Mauritius as an example. The study found that: (1) cultural experience is the most important attribute of island adventure tourism product valued by Chinese outbound travellers, followed by natural environment and skill learning, while the physical activities involved in the tourism product and the cost did not become the decisive indicators of choice. (2) Chinese outbound tourists are willing to pay the most for the cultural experience attribute of the island adventure tourism product, and the order of willingness to pay for other attributes is as follows: natural environment, skill learning, and physical activities. (3) In terms of choice heterogeneity, the group of Chinese outbound tourists who are in good physical condition, single, have travelled to islands outside China and have a high level of knowledge about adventure tourism products are more inclined to choose island adventure tourism products.

The Mongolian Plateau Grassland Road is an important international transportation channel and tourist route. The green development of the areas along the road can provide useful reference for the green Belt and Road construction and China-Mongolia green development cooperation. Based on the theory of green development, this article constructs an evaluation index system for green development level, which includes five subsystems: ecological environment quality, green economy, resource conservation and utilization, ecological and social development, and green city construction. A comprehensive evaluation model is used to quantitatively evaluate the green development level of 10 areas along the Mongolian Plateau Grassland Road from 2010 to 2019. The results show that (1) At the end of the research period, the regional green development level presented a spatial characteristic of “high in the north and south, low in the middle”. The green development level of four cities in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China in the south and Selenge Province and Ulaanbaatar City in Mongolia in the north was relatively high, while the green development level of eastern Gobi Province, Gobi Sumbeier Province, Central Province, and Darhanool Province in Mongolia, which borders China and Mongolia in the central region, was relatively low. (2) The level of green development in four cities in Inner Mongolia of China and the capital city of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, has been increasing year by year. Gobi Sumbeir Province in Mongolia has seen a decline in recent years, while the other four regions in Mongolia have shown a very slow upward trend. (3) According to the evaluation results of green development level in the years 2010-2019, the evaluation units are roughly divided into three categories: leading type, catching-up type and slow development type. The main causes of the differences involve resource and environmental conditions, degree of opening up and policy system, etc. Based on this, it is suggested to clarify the development priorities in different types of areas, vigorously promote green tourism, optimize the layout of urban systems, comprehensively deepen international cooperation, and jointly promote the process of regional green development.

Promoting tourism economic connections between provinces and regions along the Yellow River Economic Belt is of great significance for their high-quality development of social, economic, and ecological civilization. This paper uses gravity model, social network, geographical space and other analytical methods to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of economic connections between domestic tourism and inbound tourism in 9 provinces along the Yellow River Economic Belt before and after the Belt and Road Initiative was put forward. The study found that: (1) The total intensity of tourism economic connections along the Yellow River Economic Belt shows a spatial distribution pattern of gradients increase from upstream to downstream of the Yellow River. The total intensity of domestic tourism economic connections in various provinces and regions is significantly higher than that of inbound tourism. The proposal has led to an increasing trend in the total intensity and regional imbalance of domestic and inbound tourism connections year by year. (2) The tourism economic connection direction of the Yellow River Economic Belt extends from the lower reaches to the middle and upper reaches. After the initiative was put forward, the direction of domestic tourism connections remained basically unchanged, but Sichuan entered the core axis of inbound tourism connections. (3) The tourism economic connection network along the Yellow River Economic Belt presents a core-periphery structure. The initiative promotes an increase in network density, a trend towards complex and balanced network structures. The complexity and density growth trend of domestic tourism networks are greater than those of inbound tourism. (4) The road network density, the number of permanent residents at the end of the year, the number of annual tourists and the number of the Belt and Road tourism policies are the main factors affecting the total intensity of domestic tourism economic connection in each province. The road network density, the number of permanent residents at the end of the year, the number of tourism practitioners and regional GDP are the main factors affecting the total intensity of inbound tourism economic connection in each province.

The policy system of ecological civilization and national parks is an important part of the national governance system in the new era of the “governance of China”. Based on the three-dimensional analysis framework of “policy structure-policy tools-policy evolution”, we use evolutionary theory and qualitative analysis tools to sort out the policies and regulations related to China’s ecological civilization and national parks, and analyze the evolution stages, characteristics and contents of the policies and regulations since the 21st century in the field of ecological civilization. This paper analyzes the stages, characteristics and contents of policies in the field of ecological civilization, and discusses the vision objectives and development paths of the policies and systems under the new situation in the context of local practices. The research results show that: (1) The evolution of policies regarding ecological civilization and national parks since the 21st century can be divided into four stages, including the policy exploration stage (2000-2006), the policy demonstration stage (2007-2012), the policy expansion and enhancement stage (2013-2017), and the policy continuous optimization stage (2018-present), with the peak stage of evolution from 2016 to 2018; (2) Institutional policies are dominated by coercive tools, presenting a high degree of national will and authority, with insufficient diversification of the participating subjects and a general degree of social participation, the standardized normative form and the programmatic policy form co-occur most frequently, and the structural coercive tools are the most commonly used form of policy combination; (3) Local ecological civilization practices are distinctive, with “Fujian Model”, “Qinghai Experiences”, and “Zhejiang Path” being important ecological civilization pilot experiences; (4) China’s ecological civilization policy and institutional construction has achieved significant breakthrough in the top-level design, local practice, and conceptual influence of the system, and it is possible to promote the construction of China’s ecological civilization policy and institutional construction in six directions, such as further improving the construction of the institutional system and the refinement of the field, and in 10 specific aspects, including law, culture and the economy.

Ecological recreation space plays a pivotal role in ensuring the well-being of urban inhabitants. Given the increasing emphasis on livability and ecological development in metropolitan areas, coupled with the regionalization of residents’ recreation activities, it becomes imperative to delve into the optimization of the comprehensive layout of ecological recreation spaces. This paper examines the distribution patterns, temporal evolution, and influencing factors of ecological recreation spaces in Beijing between 2000 and 2020. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) From 2000 to 2020, the spatiotemporal evolution of ecological recreation space in Beijing was characterized by three distinct phases: initial central urban area aggregation, subsequent mountain-based aggregation, and final expansion around these central urban areas. The overarching pattern transitioned from a singular-core aggregation to a dual-core model with multiple centers, culminating in a face-shaped continuity. This resulted in the distribution characteristics of ecological recreation spaces in the central urban area and new cities within plain areas being concentrated, while the mountainous areas have low-density spaces. (2) The distribution center of ecological recreation spaces has shifted along the northeast-southeast direction, experiencing a process of initial dispersion followed by concentration. The polarized effect of the increase in the number of ecological recreation spaces in the east-west orientation is more prominent, while the distribution of the increase in the number of ecological recreation spaces in the north-south orientation is relatively balanced and has multi-center characteristics. (3) The distribution of ecological recreation spaces within urban areas has a dependent relationship with elevation, water systems, transportation infrastructure, and ecological space, yet population demand and planning policies play pivotal roles in driving the increase in the number and expansion of these spaces in Beijing. This study suggests that metropolitan regions should enhance the coordination of ecological recreation space construction and design from a comprehensive regional perspective. It emphasizes the importance of optimizing the distribution of urban ecological recreation spaces, thereby promoting the refinement of urban territorial spatial structures and enhancing residents’ well-being.

Mountainous tourism areas have become an important research object in the environmental issues of cultural ecosystem services (CES), however there is still insufficient research on objective portray of spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of CES and sub-CES in mountainous tourism areas from the recognition of social media photo. Taking the Seven-hole Scenic Spot in Zhangjiang, Libo, Guizhou as a case, this paper selects the scenic photos with location information on the Six Feet and 2BULU website during 2015-2022 to analyze the spatio-temporal characteristic and its influencing factors of CES in typical mountainous tourism areas through several methods such as photo content analysis of social media, nearest-neighbor index, spatial auto-correlation and Geo-detector. The results show that: (1) The spatial characteristics of CES are from scattered to agglomerated pattern, and the agglomeration characteristics of sub-CES enhances year by year. (2) Hot spot zones of sub-CES have developed from a single core independent and multi-core agglomeration distribution, gradually evolved into a spatial distribution pattern of belt-shaped extension and fusion towards the eastern part of the scenic spot, and scattered distribution of hot spots in the western part of the scenic spot. (3) Natural factors such as water, elevation, and social factors such as land use, road types are the dominant factors affecting the spatial distribution of CES, in which the effect of social factors is gradually increasing, while that of natural factors is gradually weakening. (4) The spatial explanatory power of the interaction between the factors of slope angle, slope direction, NDVI and those of distance from road, distance from water of CES, is significantly enhanced compared with that of a single factor, while the explanatory power of the factors interaction between two dimensions is stronger compared with that of the interaction between a single natural or social factor. Based on the research, this paper will enrich the theoretical paradigm of spatio-temporal analysis for CES in mountainous tourism areas, and provide practical reference for their conservation development of the ecosystem, and the improvement of the social and ecological well-being of the public.

Measuring the carbon emissions of summer tourism for urban elderly residents in mountainous areas (STUER) and understanding the cultural driving factors behind it, are of great significance for enriching low-carbon tourism path choices adapted to China. This study takes the typical summer tourism destination of Wuling Mountain in Southeast Chongqing as an example, based on the perspective of “destination and generation cities”, calculates the difference in carbon emissions between “summer tourism in mountainous areas” and “living at home”. We applied exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS) to study the cultural drivers of summer vacation in the mountains for elderly urban residents. This study found that: (1) Compared with “living at home”, STUER can achieve obvious carbon reduction of 2.367-3.807 kg/day per person with obvious carbon reduction benefits. Although carbon emissions increase in the segments of transportation and additional hospitality facilities, STUER can significantly reduce carbon emissions in both energy consumption and catering, resulting in overall carbon emissions reduction. (2) The two-dimensional model based on the guidance of “internal needs and external incentives” and “traditional Chinese Confucian and Taoist philosophy”, give an explanatory effect on the influence of traditional Chinese culture for motivation of STUER. (3) The philosophical ideas and life concepts of “Taoism and nature”, “harmony with group orientation”, “tranquility and self-cultivation” and “cultivate oneself and keep the family in order” in traditional Chinese culture can further explain the cultural motivation of STUER. The study also indicates that STUER unconsciously become practitioners of low-carbon concepts and green consumption, which is internalized under the influence of traditional Chinese culture.

Keyworlds elderly tourism; summer vacationtourism; carbon-reduction benefits; tourism motivation; Chinese traditional culture; low-carbon tourism; Wuling Mountain Area