In the context of the in-depth implimentation of the “Digital China” strategy, artificial intelligence (AI) has increasingly become the core engine to drive the high-quality development of tourism. However, at present, the integration of AI and tourism still faces multiple challenges such as the absence of technical ethics, data security risks, and insufficient institutional guarantees, which need to be systematically sorted out and addressed. This paper focuses on the key issues of AI-empowered tourism industry, and systematically analyzes its path mechanism and practical problems in tourism product innovation, service reconstruction, and governance system upgrading. The findings are as follows: (1) AI technology reshapes the operating logic of the tourism industry, promotes the transformation of the industry from element-driven to intelligence-driven, and builds a “data-algorithm-service” loop; (2) As a new production factor, AI is deeply embedded in the function of tourism production, enabling labor enhancement, capital optimization and intelligently resource scheduling through technology; (3) AI drives the integration of culture and tourism into a new stage characterized by digitized resources, immersed experiences, personalized supply and intelligent decision-making, and giving rise to diverse integrated business formats; (4) AI helps build a “government-enterprise-community-tourists” collaborative governance network to promote the transformation of tourism destination governance into an intelligent ecosystem; (5) The risks and challenges in the development of AI are becoming increasingly prominent, and it is necessary to make multidimensional efforts from institutional construction, technical supervision, ethical governance and personnel training to build an inclusive, safe and fair technical governance system. This study helps to clarify the core logic of AI-driven tourism industry transformation, and provides theoretical support and policy suggestions for building a new tourism development model characterized by intelligent co-creation.

Health and wellness activities are a form of temporary settlement behavior, and the selection those destinations is significantly influenced by the long-term climate characteristics of the area. This study utilized meteorological data from 54 grid nodes in Anhui Province from 1991 to 2020, processed into typical meteorological data for Solar Terms, to analyze the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of the wellness climate in Anhui Province. The study also conducted a zoning analysis of the suitability of the wellness climate using clustering methods. Additionally, data from 8 grid nodes outside Anhui Province were selected for comparative analysis. The results indicate: (1) Spring and autumn are the most suitable seasons for health and wellness in Anhui Province, with some areas suitable for summer retreats, while the winter comfort level throughout the province is relatively low; (2) Yuxi and Shexian County have the highest suitability for health and wellness, while southwestern and southern Anhui generally perform well; (3) Anhui Province can be divided into four climate characteristic zones suitable for wellness, which intuitively reflect the impact of latitude and local geography on the variability of health and wellness climate resources; (4) Compared to some northern cities, a few areas in northern Anhui have health and wellness advantages; compared to the eastern and southern neighboring regions of Anhui Province, southwestern and southern Anhui have health and wellness advantages; compared to southern cities, Anhui Province has a longer period of suitability for health and wellness, with southwestern Anhui having potential for off-peak development; (5) Under the backdrop of climate change, the suitable zones for health and wellness climate are generally shifting northward. The study innovatively proposed the use of typical meteorological data from solar terms for evaluating the suitability of the health and wellness climate, systematically revealing the spatiotemporal distribution patterns of the suitability of the health and wellness climate, addressing the issue of temporal roughness in traditional mean or threshold evaluations, and is of significant importance for the scientific evaluation of health and wellness climate resources and the development of the health and wellness tourism industry.

The cultural genes carried by traditional festivals serve as vital link connecting the past and the future, maintaining the continuity of social culture. They play a significant role in preserving regional cultural identity and perpetuating local cultural heritage. Taking the Jingxi Banner Festival as a case study, this research employs interdisciplinary methodologies, including material morphology, semiotics, and psychology, to establish a “explicit-implicit” dual-dimensional gene identification method. Through this approach, the cultural genes are identified and extracted, leading to the construction of a cultural gene system for traditional festivals. The study reveals: (1) the cultural gene system of traditional festivals forms a multi-dimensional, nested cultural ecosystem through the dynamic mutual construction of explicit and implicit genes, thereby maintaining resilience in balancing the preservation of tradition with adaption to modernity. (2) Within explicit genes, the triad of “material elements-ritual behaviors-spatiotemporal contexts” constitutes an expressive chain of “storage-decoding-reproduction”. For implicit genes, the quartet of “cultural symbolism-emotional structure-social function-value orientation” forms an expressive chain of “transmission-evocation-reinforcement-integration”. (3) The “explicit-implicit” dual-dimensional identification method effectively addresses the challenge of representing implicit cultural genes, offering a practical tool for extracting and constructing the cultural gene system of traditional festivals.

The reconstruction of the tourism discipline driven by artificial intelligence (AI) is a core issue in aligning tourism education with China’s national strategy of building a strong education system and supporting the intelligent transformation of the cultural and tourism industries. However, systematic research on how AI can be deeply integrated into the development of the tourism discipline remains limited. This underscores a knowledge gap and the urgent need to integrate AI into tourism education. This paper explores the emerging opportunities, challenges, and paradigms in the AI-driven reconstruction of tourism education. The findings reveal that: (1) AI is reshaping the theoretical foundations of the tourism discipline, fostering interdisciplinary integration and knowledge system reconstruction, thereby catalyzing novel theoretical paradigms that extend tourism research boundaries. (2) AI technologies are expediting the integration of AI into educational practices, leading to profound transformations in curriculum design, instructional methods, and assessment frameworks, in turn redefining teaching roles and enabling more personalized learning experiences. (3) Tourism discipline faces multiple challenges during this transformation, including cognitive misalignment, difficulties in technological implementation, and lagging ethical governance, highlighting the need for unified understanding, robust support for implementation, and updated ethical guidelines. (4) Future discipline development should prioritize technological governance, institutional innovation, and cultural guidance to facilitate intelligent advancement and value recreation in tourism education, ensuring responsible AI adoption, institutional adaptability, and preservation of core cultural values. This study enriches framework for tourism discipline development in the AI era from the theoretical and practical perspective and offers actionable policy recommendations for decisionmakers and educational administrators, contributing to the modernization of a tourism discipline system with Chinese characteristics.

In the context of efficiency change and economic transformation, promoting the coordinated development of cultural industry and tourism industry efficiency has become crucial for achieving cultural and tourism integration and high-quality development. This study establishes an analytical framework for the synergistic growth of the efficiency, and systematically investigate the characteristics of cultural-tourism efficiency coordination and its influencing factors in China by employing the methods of the Super-EBM model, Haken model, non-parametric kernel density estimation, Theil index, and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The study finds: (1) both cultural industry efficiency and tourism industry efficiency exhibit positive feedback effects on the synergistic growth system between cultural and tourism industries, yet the cultural industry efficiency dominates the evolution system. (2) During the study period, the synergistic growth of the efficiency between cultural and the tourism industries in general shows the diffusion characteristic of gradually decreasing from the southeast coast to the northwest inland, forming a regional hierarchy of “Central China > Eastern China > Western China”. (3) Kernel density estimation identifies a persistent “single-peak” distribution pattern across national and regional levels, while Theil index decomposition reveals an overall “U-shaped” evolutionary trajectory primarily attributable to inter-regional disparities. (4)The synergistic growth of the efficiency between cultural and tourism industries is influenced by multiple factors, and fsQCA identifies four distinct configuration paths: digital economy-human capital synergy, government-resource synergy, market-transportation synergy, and a compound “government-resource+market-transportation” model. The article reveals the complex grouping causes of the synergistic growth of the efficiency between cultural and tourism industries, enriches the research on the relationship between culture and tourism, and.offers theoretical references, in-depth integration and high-quality development of culture and tourism.

Limited by the characteristics of personalization and colloquialism, how to use bullet screens for festival and special event image perception is still a blank in current research. Addressing the unique characteristics of bullet screen content and its emotional analysis, this study employs the “cognition-emotion-overall” model and “core-periphery” structural model to design a multi-dimensional emotional dictionary for bullet screens and an emotional analysis algorithm tailored to bullet screens. This innovative approach establishes an online perception analysis method for event image, resolving the challenge of emotional analysis in short bullet screen texts. Taking the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games as an empirical case, the research empirically analyzes the evolution of its perceived image. The research found that: (1)the cognitive image of the Beijing Winter Olympics has the characteristics of dynamic changes from macro to specific and then to individual; (2) The emotional image demonstrates characteristics of positive dominance and resilience; (3) The overall image manifests characteristics of networked diffusion and hierarchical transmission; (4) The online communication of the Winter Olympics image can be divided into four stages: “cognitive formation, emotional resonance, image transmission, and image consolidation & legacy transformation”. This research is the first to introduce bullet screens into the perception of festival and special event image, and has built a method for festival and special event image perception by integrating text mining and network analysis techniques. At the same time, the empirical research not only validates the effectiveness of this method, but also enriches the theory of festival tourism from multiple aspects, including the expansion of staged communication models, the deepening of emotional driving mechanisms, and the innovation of networked communication paths. Moreover, it provides practical guidance for festival and special event image management and application of new media data.

The rise of health and wellness tourism has profoundly influenced the placeness of destinations. Under the behavioral impacts of health and wellness tourists, the natural environment, cultural traits, and social life of a place inevitably become embedded in the field of health and wellness tourism, undergoing rapid transformation. By systematically reviewing domestic and international literature on health and wellness tourism, tourist behavior, and placeness from 2000 to 2023, this study identifies theoretical bottlenecks in existing research, including fragmented conceptual definitions, a lack of behavioral logic from the demand side, and ambiguous mechanisms of dynamic evolution. Innovatively, a novel dynamic model for three-stages of "cognition-integration-negotiation" is constructed in this paper in the expectation of revealing the progressive impact pathways of health and wellness tourists' behaviors on placeness. Key findings include: (1) cognitive behaviors in health and wellness tourism reshape local characteristics through selective resource screening mechanism; (2) Healing-oriented integration behaviors trigger bidirectional evolution of placeness and placelessness via high-frequency participation; (3) Health governance negotiation behaviors drive stakeholder gameplay, resulting in either synergistic development or risks of homogenization in placeness. The research is expected to provide a theoretical framework for constructing and sustaining placeness in health and wellness tourism destinations, as well as responding the practical need to harmonize human-environment interactions under “Healthy China” strategy.

Cultural ecology connects human society with the natural environment, and is the hidden line of civilization evolution and social development. As vital spaces that carry urban memory and showcase urban characteristics and spiritual temperament, the cultural ecological value of historical blocks is not only reflected in the protection of their natural form, but also in the continuation of their historical context, the maintenance of social relationships, and the innovative development of the cultural and tourism industry. Taking Dongguan Street, Pishi Street and Caiyi Street in Yangzhou City as case studies, we explored the cultural ecological value of urban historical blocks and the influencing factors from the perspective of tourists’ perception by employing methods such as questionnaire surveys, factor analysis and Potential Conflict Index (PCI) and ANOVA. The findings reveal that: (1) tourists’ perception of the cultural ecological value of urban historical blocks primarily comprises three dimensions: experiential value, social value and educational value. (2) Tourists have the highest evaluation of the cultural ecological value (including experiential value and educational value) of Dongguan Street, the lowest evaluation of the cultural ecological value of Caiyi Street and generally believe that Pishi Street has the highest social value. (3) Individual factors such as gender, occupation, and education level of tourists, as well as situational factors such as the companionship of family and friends, the quality of tourism services and policy support, have a significant impact on their perception of cultural ecological value. (4) The perception of the cultural ecological value presents a dynamic process from passive acceptance to active recognition, and then to cognitive sublimation. In the future, the cultural ecological value of urban historical blocks can be enhanced from three aspects of collaborative governance of multiple stakeholders, human-oriented landscape shaping, and differentiated cultural and tourism development, in order to promote its cultural ecological prosperity and tourism high-quality development.

Driven by the transition to an experience economy and the reconstruction of personal existential values, the theoretical construction of transformative tourism experience (TTE) has emerged as a frontier in tourism research. Based on the pertinent English literature from the Web of Science core collection, this study integrates CiteSpace bibliometric analysis and the PRISMA framework, guided by the “Stimulus-Organism-Response” framework and transformative learning theory to systematically deconstruct the generative mechanism of TTE. The research finds that: (1) the antecedents of TTE exhibit five-dimensional interactions encompassing individual attributes, embodied engagement, emotional activation, destination characteristics, and tourism contexts; (2) The process of TTE follows a cyclic feedback mechanism from “disorienting dilemmas-triggers-self-reflection-transformation” to the re-stimulation of transformative tourism, aligning with the transformative learning theory; (3) TTE mainly include four layers of effects: physical, psychological, spiritual and social gains, the key points of its post-effects are prominently reflected in the improvement of individual skills and cognition, self-actualization, and the promotion of social progress, etc. The research framework of “antecedent-process-post-effect” proposed in the study provides theoretical inspiration for the construction of a transformative tourism experience research system in the Chinese scenario and enriches the research paradigm of tourism experience.

The scientific distribution of digital tourism signage has become a critical issue in enhancing urban tourism experiences and the efficiency of public information services. However, most existing site selection approaches still rely heavily on empirical judgment, often resulting in uneven information distribution and unbalanced signage density, which negatively impacts tourists’ access to attraction information and overall satisfaction. To address this problem, this study proposes a location optimization model for digital tourism signage based on the objectives of maximal coverage, and introduces deep reinforcement learning to solve the model with support from multi-source spatiotemporal data. The research includes a detailed process of data collection and preprocessing, integrates the Geo-detector and attention mechanism to identify key influencing factors, and constructs the state space and decision strategy through deep reinforcement learning. Additionally, the proposed method is systematically compared with classical solvers and heuristic algorithms in terms of solution quality and computational efficiency. Using the Beijing Fifth Ring Road Area as the experimental case, the results show that: (1) existing digital tourism signs are primarily concentrated in the eastern and northeastern regions, highly correlated with the spatial distribution of tourist attractions; (2) Tourism heat, visitor activity, and public transportation accessibility significantly influence the signage distribution; (3) All three optimization methods prioritize the layout of signage in Xicheng District and its surrounding areas, with the deep reinforcement learning approach achieving better computational efficiency while ensuring layout effectiveness. This study innovatively applies deep reinforcement learning to the digital tourism signage location problem, promoting the transformation of location strategy from experience-driven to data-driven, and from static deployment to intelligent optimization. It provides both a technical foundation and practical reference for the smart planning of tourism information infrastructure.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a representative technology of the fourth technological revolution, has become a significant driver for promoting Tourism Total Factor Productivity (TTFP) advancement. The study employs the Malmquist index model to measure tourism industry TFP across 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2024, and combines the methods such as Lorenz curves and Getis-Ord Gi* statistical index to compare regional differences in AI technology and explore its impact on TTFP. The results indicate: (1) both AI technology and tourism TFP showed growth trends during 2011-2024, but with notable spatial disparities with AI development in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and southeastern coastal areas being significantly stronger than the national average, while TTFP in central and northeastern regions is higher than that in eastern and western regions. (2) AI technology has a significant positive impact on tourism technological progress and TTFP enhancement, but its effect on technical efficiency is not evident, but the quantile regression results show that the marginal utility of AI on TTFP first decreases then increases. (3) Regional heterogeneity analysis reveals that eastern, central, and northeastern regions display positive correlations between AI technology and tourism TFP, while effects in western regions have yet to appear. For future development, the tourism industry should: leverage AI technology to develop AI-Generated Content (AIGC) scenarios and enhance interactive experiences with emphasis on “emotional” and “humanistic” orientations; draw from successful experiences in other fields by establishing user profiles and constructing digital twin scenic areas to break low-level cycles; strengthen regional cooperation to promote talent mobility and technology transfer, thereby narrowing regional development gaps and improving TTFP.

The core purpose of national parks lies in maintaining the integrity of natural ecosystems. Nevertheless, light pollution has become a new challenge currently for natural ecological conservation in national parks. The research takes the Giant Panda National Park as an example. Based on long-term nocturnal light remote sensing data, in combination with the spatial analysis technology of Geographic Information System and the geographical detector method, it explores the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of light pollution from 1984 to 2020. The research findings indicate that: (1) in terms of temporal evolution, light pollution in the Giant Panda National Park is generally on the rise, with a significantly intensification observed particularly after 2000 and 2008. (2) In terms of spatial differentiation, the pollution exhibits a characteristic pattern of “peripheral agglomeration and core infiltration”, where areas of significant change are concentrated along the fragmented edges of the park, adjacent to major transportation corridors, and near administrative boundaries. (3) In terms of influencing factors, light pollution is driven by the nonlinear interaction of multiple factors. Among them, the gross domestic product is the leading factor, and when it is superimposed with the road network density, the impact reaches its maximum. This research reveals the spatiotemporal evolution patterns and influencing factors of light pollution in the Giant Panda National Park, providing an important reference for the formulation of protection and construction policies for national parks.

Scientific analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamic coupling mechanism between cultural heritage conservation-utilization and tourism development is a key driver for collaborative transformation of cultural resources in ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Taking the nine provinces (autonomous regions) along the Yellow River as the research area, this study constructs a dynamic coupling model between cultural heritage conservation-utilization and tourism development. A three-stage analytical framework encompassing entropy weight method, coupling coordination degree and obstacle diagnosis was applied to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution patterns of the two systems from 2013 to 2022. The findings reveal: (1) the comprehensive development levels of the two systems exhibit asynchronous periodic fluctuations temporally, while spatially demonstrating gradient-decreasing and pyramid-shaped hierarchical structures respectively; (2) The overall coupling coordination degree of the two systems remains suboptimal (near-maladjustment stage), transitioning through three-phase evolutionary paths temporally, and the spatial pattern evolution exhibits a “local increase, overall decrease” characteristic, with the center of gravity continuously shifting toward the northwest; (3) At the system level, Cultural heritage is the primary obstacle factor; with bidirectional constraints identified between heritage conservation practices and tourism market scale at the indicator level.

Hosting sports events is an important opportunity for local governments to establish a cultural image and engage in culture outreach. Understanding the cultural narrative mechanism of local sports events is helpful for local governments to “telling compelling cultural stories”. Taking the first mountaineering conference in Hunan Province as an example, this paper discusses the cultural narrative mechanism of local sports events from the perspective of “storytelling and dramatization” of the dramaturgical theory, based on participatory observation, in-depth interview, thematic analysis of live video and news texts methods. The findings are as follows: (1) A local sports event can be regarded as a “cultural drama”, structured around five narratives types: actor narrative, stage narrative, script narrative, act narrative and audience narrative. (2) Actors carry out “performative” cultural narration through their roles, behaviors, emotions and wills; the stage promotes “symbolic” cultural narrative with the help of space and scenery design; the script relies on the theme and story to complete the “story-based” cultural narrative; the act uses media and perspectives to achieve a “refined” cultural narrative; the audience realizes “interactive” cultural narrative through on-site and digital interactions. (3) Finally, the script serves as narrative logic, the actors and audience as narrative subjects, the stage as narrative carrier, and the drama as narrative media, all of which together construct the cultural narrative mechanism model of local sports events in a layer-by-layer correlation and complementary relationship. The research innovatively puts forward the theoretical framework of “cultural drama of sports events”, which can provide theoretical reference for “telling compelling local cultural stories”, “constructing narrative system of sports events” and the integrated development of culture, sports and tourism.

The digital transformation of the tourism industry has changed the operational mode of tourist destinations and provided local residents the opportunities to participate in tourism and challenges to their pro-tourism behaviors Based on the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) theory, this study employs Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyze 297 questionnaires from residents of Pingyao Ancient City, revealing the impacts of digital literacy (digital technology, digital cognition, digital social emotion) and perceptions of economic, environmental, and socio-cultural benefits on pro-tourism behavior in configuration path analysis. The study finds that:(1) no single factor constitutes a necessary condition for pro-tourism behavior, with environmental benefit perception being the first bottleneck factor. (2) Pro-tourism behavior exhibits “multiple concurrency” and “different means but same result” effects, with four high pro-tourism behavior patterns (pure digital-driven, technology-economic-emotion, digital-economic, and comprehensive types) and four non-high pro-tourism behavior patterns (environment-emotion constrained, environment constrained, digital technology deficient, and digital social emotion insufficient types). (3) The antecedent conditions influencing high and non-high pro-tourism behavior have heterogeneity and certain substitutability. The study clarifies the multiple antecedent relationships, causal asymmetry, and multiple equivalent pathways of residents’ pro-tourism behavior, providing theoretical support for the sustainable development of tourism destinations and practical guidance for policymaking and resource allocation.

Xu Xiake (1587-1641), the “Sage of Chinese Tourism”, represents a distinctive cultural symbol. The Travels of Xu Xiake not only records rich natural landscapes and social life, but provides a valuable ideological foundation for modern ecotourism. Based on the text of Travels of Xu Xiake, we analyze his travel philosophy, nature observation methods and environmental protection practices from the perspective of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) theory, and explore the value of his view of ecological cognition on modern ecotourism. The study concludes that: (1) travels of Xu Xiake demonstrates the germ of scientific cognition through quantitative investigation and systematic thinking, and reflects traditional Chinese ecological wisdom through local ecological records, condensing the empirical spirit of “action and observation”. (2) During his travels, Xu Xiake formed a three-layer ecological cognitive framework of “observation, cognition and regulation”. The observation layer adopts a distributed recording method combining quantitative measurement and qualitative description to establish an original ecological database; the cognition layer deconstructs and transforms the recorded data to reveal the dynamic laws of the formation process; and the regulation layer transforms the ethical thinking in the process of cognitive transformation into institutional practice. This complete framework contains traditional ecological wisdom and provides a theoretical model for the transformation of ecotourism from superficial sightseeing to sustainable governance. (3) Based on Xu Xiake’s concept of ecological cognition, the future development of ecotourism can be enhanced in three dimensions through digital technology: replacing passive sightseeing with scientific engagement, transcending superficial reception through in-depth cognition, and breaking through external constraints with endogenous behavior drive, ultimately realizing the goal of “travel as a vehicle for harmony between humans and nature”.

Continuous optimization of functional design and service environment in convention centers has made them critical factors influencing attendees’ experiences. Based on the servicescape theory, this study proposes a concept of “conventionscape” and constructs four key dimensions: facility services, spatial attribute services, added-value services, and staff services. Drawing on experiential marketing theory, the study categorizes experiential value into personal and shared experiential value. Using the Sanxingdui Special Exhibition at the Hengqin Culture and Art Center as a case study, a total of 231 valid questionnaires were collected and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) analysis. The results reveal that: (1) all four dimensions of the exhibition servicescape positively affect attendees’ personal experiential value; (2) Facility services and added-value services significantly influence shared experiential value, whereas spatial attribute services and staff services show no significant impact; (3) Both types of experiential value significantly enhance attendees’ satisfaction, thereby fostering loyalty. This study validates the influence mechanism of servicescape in exhibition centers, extends the application of servicescape theory, and demonstrates the complementary values of integrating SEM and ANN, providing practical implications for improving convention centers’ competitiveness and service design.

As the world’s largest outbound tourist-generating country, China’s outbound tourism exerts considerable influence in areas such as cultural dissemination, economic cooperation, and international diplomacy due to its massive scale and wide spatial reach. Drawing on panel data of Chinese outbound tourist arrivals to 123 destination countries from 2000 to 2019, this study employs Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) and Markov chain models to examine the spatial-temporal distribution and evolutionary patterns of outbound tourism flows from a directional flow perspective. The key findings are as follows: (1) from a spatial-temporal perspective, the overall spatial distribution of China’s outbound tourism flow exhibits a significant positive spatial autocorrelation, with fluctuating patterns of agglomeration over time. At the local level, the distribution is predominantly characterized by high-high and high-low clusters. (2) Regarding evolutionary stability, the outbound tourism flows display a long-term “club convergence” pattern characterized by persistent polarization into high and low-level destination groups, suggesting that leapfrog growth in tourist reception is difficult to achieve in the short term. (3) From the perspective of evolutionary dependence, the development trajectories of outbound tourism destinations are significantly influenced by neighboring environments, specifically manifested through a mechanism of low-level constraints and high-level radiation effects. However, in environments with adjacent high and low levels, radiation-driven effects may transition into weakening barriers. (4) In terms of long-term trends, the destination system of Chinese outbound tourism is gradually stabilizing into a dual-core structure dominated by high- and low-level clusters, with a declining proportion of mid-level destinations. A localized bi-modal distribution pattern is also evident, whereby high-level countries tend to cluster in high-ranking neighborhood environments, while low-level countries concentrate in areas surrounded by similarly underdeveloped destinations. This article, through an in-depth analysis of the spatial mechanisms of outbound tourism flows, holds theoretical and practical significance for systematically understanding destination spatial structures and, and provide a valuable basis for aligning outbound tourism development with broader national strategies.

Digital economy serves as a powerful driving force for the green development of cultural and tourism industries. Exploring the relationship between digital economy and green technological progress can provide guidance for the sustainable development of cultural and tourism industries. This study takes the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2013 to 2021 as a sample to analyze the impact mechanism of digital economy on green technological progress in China’s cultural and tourism industries. The results show that: (1) during the study period, the Digital Economy Development Index and the Green Technological Progress Index of the Cultural and Tourism Industries exhibited an overall upward trajectory. However, the digital divide continued to widen, while the Green Technological Progress Index of the Cultural and Tourism Industries is significantly influenced by external environmental shocks; (2) The digital economy exerts a significant and sustained promoting effect on the green technological progress of the cultural and tourism industries; (3) The digital economy promotes the green technological progress of cultural and tourism industries by enhancing the activeness of tourism market entities and increasing the labor input in the tertiary industry; (4) The development level of digital economy and the level of labor skills have heterogeneous impacts on the green technological progress of cultural and tourism industries, and this promoting effect is more obvious in regions with backward digital economy and low labor skill levels. Based on this, the study puts forward relevant suggestions for promoting the green development of cultural and tourism industries from the aspects of giving play to the characteristics of digital economy, strengthening talent training, stimulating the vitality of cultural and tourism markets, and implementing differentiated development strategies.

This study investigates the New Quality Productive Forces (NQPF) and tourism industrial competitiveness across 272 Chinese cities based on the entropy weight TOPSIS method to measure the coupling degree and the coordination degree between new quality productivity and tourism industrial competitiveness, and to explore the dynamic mechanism of the coordination degree using the panel data. The findings reveal that: (1) the level of NQPF is lower than the level of tourism industrial competitiveness, but the growth of the former is higher than that of the latter. Significant disparities exist among cities, with the eastern region leading in both NQPF and tourism industrial competitiveness, though growth trends remain similar across regions. (2) The overall level of coupling and coupling coordination between NQPF and tourism industrial competitiveness is moderate but shows an increasing trend year by year. There is no significant difference in the level of coupling between eastern, central and western cities, but the coupling coordination degree of eastern cities is higher than that of central and western cities. (3) Digital innovation, fiscal expenditure, urbanization, marketization, and resident consumption are the fundamental drivers for the coupled and coordinated development of new quality productivity and tourism industrial competitiveness. Digital innovation is the core driving mechanism for the coordinated development of new quality productivity and tourism industrial competitiveness in eastern, central and western cities, with eastern cities relying mainly on market power, central cities relying on the dual power of government and market, and western cities being driven by both government power and market power. In addition, high-innovation cities rely on endogenous and market dynamics, low-innovation cities are significantly influenced by exogenous dynamics, while tourism-dependent cities have a single driving mechanism, and non-tourism-dependent cities show diversified driving characteristics. These findings expand application scenarios of the theoretical framework of NQPF, deepen the understanding of its interplay with tourism development, and provide references for the synergistic enhancement of the competitiveness of new quality productivity and tourism as well as the promotion of the construction of the emerging strategic pillar industry of tourism.

Homestays are an important means to promote the realization of the value of ecological products and rural revitalization, but their pricing mechanism is complex. This study focuses on a typical ecological functional area, i.e. the Beijing’s ecological conservation area. Based on data from the Tujia homestay website, geographical spatial analysis and multiple linear regression methods are employed to analyze the spatial differentiation characteristics and influencing factors of homestay prices. The results show: (1) the spatial distribution of homestays within the area exhibits obvious local agglomeration features, with high-priced homestays overlapping significantly with high-rated tourist areas, mountainous and hilly terrains, and forests; (2) Housing characteristics and architectural features are the main influencing factors on the price formation of homestays in the ecological conservation area, and the impact of transportation accessibility on homestay pricing is relatively weak; (3) Local ecological environmental factors also affect homestay pricing, with elevation and mountain view resources having a significant positive impact on homestay prices, while the normalized difference vegetation index shows a clear negative correlation with homestay prices. The study reveals the spatial heterogeneity patterns of homestay prices in the ecological conservation area, identifies the potential impact of high-density vegetation ecosystems on homestay prices, and enriches the typical regional case studies of the spatial pattern of tourism homestay prices. The findings can provide theoretical references for regional tourism planning, policy formulation for homestay development, and homestay management and operations.

Cities are important tourist destinations, and smart city construction profoundly affects tourism development. Focusing on 100 prefecture-level pilot smart cities in China, the research employs data from the CEIC database and statistical yearbooks of those prefecture-level cities from 2006-2019 to analyze the impact of smart city construction on tourism development level through difference-in-differences model and panel data regression model. Research has found that: (1) smart city construction has significantly improved tourism development level. (2) Smart city construction mainly promotes the improvement of tourism development level from four dimensions, namely, smart infrastructure, smart transportation, technological innovation, and smart economy, among them, technological innovation dimension shows the strongest influence. (3) The impact of the four dimensions of smart city construction on the tourism development level varies according to the size of the city. The dimensions of technological innovation, smart infrastructure, and smart economy have the most prominent impacts in large cities, medium-sized cities, and small cities, respectively. These findings provide empirical evidence and theoretical support for optimizing smart city initiatives to drive high-quality tourism development.

The coastal areas are pioneers in the development of China’s exhibition industry, and continue to promote the efficient, green and sustainable development of the urban economy through the exhibition industry. This paper uses entropy method and super-efficiency SBM model to measure the development level of exhibition industry and green economic efficiency in China’s coastal areas from 2013 to 2022, and uses spatial econometric model and mediating effect model to empirically test the spatial spillover effect and mechanism of exhibition industry development effect on urban green economic efficiency. The study found that: (1) the development of urban exhibition industry in China’s coastal areas significantly promotes the growth of local green economic efficiency, but has a negative spatial spillover effect on the development of green economy in adjacent cities. (2) The exhibition industry mainly promotes the efficiency of urban green economy through two pathways: industrial structure upgrading and technological innovation, with the mediating effect of technological innovation is stronger than that of industrial structure upgrading. (3) Affected by the development stage of the exhibition industry, urban development strategy and other factors, there are significant differences in the impact of the development of the exhibition industry on the efficiency of green economy in different urban agglomerations. Based on this, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions, such as establishing a cross-regional coordination mechanism of exhibition, giving full play to the two-wheel driving role of industrial structure upgrading and technological innovation, and promoting the ecological development of exhibition industry by digitalization.

It is believed that improving tourists' mental and physical health through the self-repairing effects of ecological subconsciousness is an important function of wetland tourism. This paper with the technical support of heart rate variability, selects Fuxian Wetland National Park as the study area to construct the model of emotional regulation process in wetland tourism and wetland ecotourism healing perception model (WEHPM). The study explores the mechanisms of autonomic nervous system dynamic regulation patterns and psychological adaptability in emotional regulation and health recovery benefits, while systematically revealing and validating the multi-level progressive pathways and intrinsic laws of tourists' health recovery effects in wetland contexts. The study found: (1) wetland tourism demonstrates significant emotional regulation and health restoration functions. (2) The wetland environment, as an external ecological stimulus, effectively activates tourists’ intrinsic sensory responses, promoting the reconstruction of their autonomic nervous system’s dynamic balance, Thereby, gradually restoring individuals’ stress patterns from a stressed, imbalanced state to an orderly homeostasis. (3) The health benefits of wetland tourism include reducing tourists’ stress levels, alleviating negative emotions such as anxiety, and enhancing the dynamic vitality of their physiological functions. The paper introduces the ecological perception and restoration theory which provides methodological support for the planning and performance evaluation of wetland parks. It also expands the research context for studying tourists’ health recovery benefits and enriches case studies in wellness tourism research.

The spatial nesting relationship between tourism resources and surrounding polluting enterprises is an important factor affecting the sustainable development of tourism. Using exploratory spatial data analysis and co-location quotient, this paper discusses the spatial association characteristics and patterns between tourism resources and polluting enterprises in Fujian Province. The results show that: (1) in the overall pattern, tourism resources and polluting enterprises in Fujian Province show a significant spatial mismatch, and the region with high diversity and high uniformity of tourism resources is the region with low diversity and low uniformity of polluting enterprises; on the clustering characteristics, the high-density centers of tourism resources and polluting enterprises show a pattern of contiguous clustering in coastal areas and counties. (2) In terms of spatial association characteristics, the overall spatial association between tourism resources and polluting enterprises is weak, and the spatial correlation intensity between natural and cultural tourism resources and polluting enterprises has spatial differences; the highly synergetic areas between natural tourism resources and manufacturing, wholesale and retail enterprises are concentrated in southern Fujian and northeast Fujian; and the highly synergetic areas of cultural tourism resources and agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery enterprises are the tourism areas of the southwest and northwest Fujian. (3) On the spatial association patterns, tourism resources and polluting enterprises mainly form four spatial association patterns: high-high-remote type, low-low-non-remote type, high-low-non-remote type and low-high-remote type; in the remote type, the polluting enterprises tend to be far away from the administrative center, while in the non-remote type, the polluting enterprises do not deviate significantly from the administrative center. The study reveals the spatial relationship between tourism resources and polluting enterprises from the geographical level, which is of great significance for the analysis of the spatial layout of tourism resources and surrounding industries.

In an era marked by accelerated globalization, informatization, and digital economy development, digital nomads as a group that practices a new mode of production and lifestyle characterized by remote work and high mobility, have rapidly emerged, profoundly impacting global labor market, tourism industry, and policy systems. Drawing on literature from the database of Web of Science, this study systematically reviews the trajectory of international research on digital nomads from 2003 to 2024. It identifies three major developmental stages: the “Technological foundation period” (2003-2013), the “Lifestyle and identity formation period” (2014-2019), and the “Institutional response and critical deepening period” (2020-2024). Current scholarship has expanded beyond remote work to encompass community formation, spatial practices, and institutional adaptation, reflecting growing interdisciplinary complexity. The study highlights key implications for contextualization within China: (1) from the conceptualization aspect, a tripartite typology of high-mobility, regional-mobility, and long-term-residence digital nomads was constructed to better capture the low mobility and deep local embeddedness observed in China. (2) From the community research aspect, revealing the “rurality turn” in Chinese digital-nomad clusters and highlighting the emerging pathway of “digital nomads + rural revitalization,” with particular attention to how online-offline coordination and local social networks shape settlement stability and community governance. (3) From the policy-making aspect, a national-level, integrated institutional design was advocated that aligns identity recognition, social-security portability, and tax coordination to address systemic barriers faced by digital nomads. Thus, this study constructs an integrated conceptual framework for digital-nomad research and helps to fill key gaps in theoretical paradigms, comparative evidence, and policy tools within the Chinese scholarly landscape.

In the digital era, the co-evolution of multiple systems has become critical for regional. Based on the complex system theory and synergy theory this paper takes 14 cities in Guangxi as a case study, and comprehensively applies kernel density estimation, the improved coupling coordination degree model, and the Panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model to depict the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of the digital economy, the cultural and tourism industry, and ecological civilization, as well as to reveal the coupling coordination and dynamic interaction mechanism among them. The results show that: (1) the three systems exhibit an overall upward development trend, yet with significant internal disparities, presenting a spatial pattern of “higher development level in the north and south regions and lower level in the east and west regions”. (2) The coupling coordination level has transitioned from severe imbalance towards weak coordination, but remains at a low level overall. Most cities are still in a state of imbalance, revealing disequilibrium in regional synergy. This characteristic is primarily influenced by the interplay of multiple factors, including population quality and economic development. (3) The system interaction demonstrates a complex mechanism coexisting with both synergy and trade-offs. A virtuous cycle of continuous mutual benefit has been formed between the cultural and tourism industry and ecological civilization. While driving the development of cultural and tourism sector, the digital economy shows a certain inhibitory effect on the ecological conservation in the short term. This reflects current structural challenges in the digital transformation process, such as insufficient internalization of ecological costs and the absence of well-established long-term synergy mechanisms. Following the analytical logic of “characteristics - causes - mechanisms”, this study uncovers the structural and institutional causes underlying the synergistic evolution of multiple systems, which provides a theoretical reference for understanding the coordinated evolution of diverse complex systems and offers empirical evidence for regional sustainable development and policy collaborative governance.

Social media, through its communication effect, contributes to overtourism in cultural heritage sites. Using Xiaoxitian Scenic Area, also known as Little Western Paradise, as a case study, and by doing coding analysis of online texts on the basis of grounded theory and by constructing a three-dimensional analysis framework of media-tourists-cultural heritage sites, this study explores the characteristics and formation mechanism of overtourism in cultural heritage sites driven by social media. Key findings include: (1) social media constitutes a key driving factor for overtourism by transforming the symbolic production and marketing paths of cultural heritage sites through algorithm-based recommendation mechanism and user-generated contents (UGCs) and by spurring the emergence of media pilgrimage through its fission style dissemination. (2) Overtourism in cultural heritage sites is characterized by four distinctive traits: sharp seasonal fluctuations, significant spatial clustering, excessive symbolic consumption, and pronounced contradictions between conservation and utilization. (3) The phenomenon of overtourism in cultural heritage sites emerges from the complex interplay of four key factors under mediatized context: media dissemination, tourist behaviors, resource endowments, and site management. Based on the findings, the study proposed measures and suggestions for addressing overtourism in cultural heritage sites from the perspectives of governments, scenic areas, tourists and local communities. The results of the study can provide theoretical and practical references for promoting sustainable development of tourism in cultural heritage sites.

The spiritual and emotional experiences in tourism activities are becoming increasingly important. These two aspects are not mutually exclusive but rather interactively connected and dynamically coupled. By exploring concepts of spirits, spirituality, spiritual experiences, emotions, emotional experiences, and tourist emotions, this study constructs a relational approach to the connection between spiritual experiences and emotional experiences. Research findings include: (1) the relationship between spiritual and emotional experiences progresses in depth, i.e. from “sensory perception” to “emotional comprehension” and then to “spiritual insight” and finally culminating in “life transformation”. (2) Spiritual and emotional experiences are interconnected, sharing commonalities while exhibiting distinct characteristics. Emotional fulfillment caters to tourists’ preferences, whereas spiritual guidance embodies values, representing the sublimation of emotional experiences. Both emotional fulfillment and spiritual guidance converge toward the core objective of life enrichment. (3) The interactive mechanism between spiritual and emotional experiences is a dynamic process of “environmental perception—emotional resonance—spiritual elevation”. Tourists gain a sense of life's meaning through tourism experiences. (4) Future research should focus more on the interactive connections, influencing mechanisms, and theoretical frameworks between spirituality and emotions of tourism experiences, and new pathways for tourism development should be innovated and applied to the development of cultural tourism resources. By constructing a relational approach to spirituality and emotions, this study addresses existing theoretical gaps in understanding interactive mechanisms between spirituality and emotions. It provides theoretical foundations and practical guidance for deepening the essence of tourism experiences and developing products that meet tourists' profound needs.

With their visual immediacy and efficiency, short videos have increasingly become an important channel for the public to access information. This study selects twenty highly popular travel short videos on the Douyin platform and collects 4 540 viewer comments as its data. Drawing on emotional contagion theory and employing text analysis methods, together with tools such as the PyLDAvis model, ROST CM6 software, and the SnowNLP model, the study investigates the pathways of positive emotional contagion among viewers and the mechanisms through which positive emotions influence viewers’ travel intentions and travel decision-making. The results indicate that: (1) positive emotional contagion follows two pathways: primary emotional contagion arising from interactions with short videos, and secondary emotional contagion driven by social sharing. (2) based on positive emotional contagion, viewers initiate a five-stage travel decision-making process comprising “cognitive interpretation-itinerary planning-travel expectation-emotional resonance-social dissemination”. (3) positive emotional contagion influences travel decision-making through four mechanisms: positive emotions emerging from mirroring experiences that deepen destination image and viewers’ sense of psychological belonging; positive emotions enhancing immersion and dependence, prompting viewers to seek solace in digital spaces; positive emotions triggering self-projection and collective referencing, thereby facilitating the co-construction of symbolic meanings; and positive emotions driving short-video consumption, enabling broad dissemination of destination images. (4) positive emotional contagion further motivates viewers to participate in the production of travel-related short videos through their travel behaviors, thus forming a closed loop with short-video consumption. The study expands the theoretical applicability of emotional contagion theory, destination image theory, and the “encoding-decoding” framework within the context of digital-media tourism study. In practice, it proposes three strategies for optimizing the development of the tourism market in the new era: improving short-video operation strategies, addressing and transforming non-positive emotions, and leveraging emotion-driven marketing.

Tourist satisfaction is a crucial prerequisite for the sustainable development of tourism destinations. Exploring the relationship between cultural distance and tourist satisfaction at over-tourism destinations can provide valuable insights for sustainable management. Drawing on cultural distance theory and place attachment theory, this study takes Dunhuang as a case and collected 287 valid tourist questionnaires. Using structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression analysis, the study examines the mechanisms linking tourists’ perceived cultural distance, place attachment, travel expectations, and satisfaction at over-tourism destinations. The findings indicate that: (1) tourists’ perceived cultural distance positively influences both place attachment and satisfaction significantly. (2) Place attachment mediates the relationship between perceived cultural distance and tourist satisfaction. (3) Travel expectations positively moderate the relationship between perceived cultural distance and place attachment. The study contributes theoretically by clarifying the pathways through which cultural distance affects satisfaction at over-tourism destinations and offers practical recommendations for enhancing place attachment, meeting tourist expectations, and managing visitor flows, thereby offering policy recommendations for sustainable tourism development in China’s over-tourism destinations.

Overtourism has emerged as a critical challenge constraining the sustainable transformation of destinations as China’s tourism industry moves towards a stage of high-quality development. Situated in the real-world context of consumption transformation and the digital wave, this paper systematically analyzes the localized characteristics of Chinese-style overtourism and its coping strategies from the dimensions of generative mechanism, spatial alienation, and governance transformation. The research indicates: (1) the alienation of consumption patterns from “demand-driven” to “symbol-driven” amplified by capital and media, has intensified the effect of spatial homogenization. There is an urgent need to guide the return of value rationality and implement multi-stakeholder co-governance. (2) New media algorithms have reshaped tourist destinations into rapidly communicable digital landscapes, triggering pulse-type visitor-flow aggregation and social spatial alienation. The focus of governance must shift from static capacity control to resilient governance oriented towards flow management and platform collaboration. (3) Overtourism in natural protected areas manifests as the breach of the ecological fragility threshold. Capacity limit must serve as hard constraints and with smart monitoring and ecological education safeguarding natural environments. (4) Ancient towns and villages face an authenticity crisis as they transform from a living space to a symbolic stage. It is essential to rebuild the cultural tourism model based on the community and preserve the authenticity through shared daily experiences between locals and visitors. (5) Urban overtourism is essentially a social-ecological system imbalance embedded in policy, technology, and consumption. To achieve high-quality development, a localized explanatory framework should be constructed, promoting a dynamic shift in the governance paradigm from “capacity calculation” to “flow management”, establishing a differentiated comprehensive governance system that is predictable and controllable.

Value co-creation behaviors serve as an important way to enhance tourist experience quality. Using Xi’an city as a case study, based on the embodied cognition theory and the cognition-affect-behavior theory, and by deepening the connotation of the concept of tourist experience quality and developing scales, this study analyzes the interactive mechanism between tourists’ value co-creation behaviors and tourist experience quality. Key findings include: (1) tourist experience quality is tourists’ retrospective evaluation of the embodied experience in three dimensions, including technical experience quality, environmental experience quality, and functional experience quality. (2) Tourists’ pre-trip and mid-trip value co-creation behaviors significantly exert positive effect on tourist experience quality, which in turn significantly exerts positive effect on post-trip value co-creation behaviors; furthermore, tourists’ pre-trip and mid-trip value co-creation behaviors exert positive effects on post-trip value co-creation behaviors through technical and environmental dimensions. (3) The cyclical embodied experience system formed through the interaction between tourists’ value co-creation behaviors and tourist experiences is the root cause for tourists’ value co-creation behaviors to improve the overall tourist experience quality of the destination.

Crowding is a perennial topic in tourism research, particularly salient in highly frequented tourist attractions such as theme parks. Visitor volume serves as a double-edged sword, acting both as a key indicator of a destination's appeal and a core component of its recreational atmosphere. Based on big data of online texts and small data of on-site questionnaires, this study explores whether and in what ways the perceived crowding and its effects (i.e. emotional and behavioral responses) may differ for tourists having varied experiences. The findings are as follows: (1) sentiment analyses of online reviews of Chimelong Ocean Kingdom and Shanghai Disney Resort reveal potential correlations between tourist sentiments and seasonal fluctuations in tourist volume. (2) T-tests, multiple regression analyses, and mediation effect tests of the questionnaire data indicate that while no significant difference in perceived crowding was found between new and returning tourists, its effects on emotions, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions differed markedly. (3) To be specific, for new tourists, the effects of perceived crowding on emotions, degrees of satisfaction, and behavioral intentions are dual-sided while for returning ones, perceived crowding leads directly to negative emotions and indirectly influences degrees of satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The findings of the study offer important theoretical implications for the study of tourism crowding and of the expectation theory and provide practical insights for crowd management in theme parks.

Scientific measurement of the spatial matching relationship between tourist resource points and tourist interest points is a key technical link in the selection of routes for self-driving scenic byways and the optimization of regional tourism productivity layout. The study introduces the theory of spatial matching, integrates multivariate data, and tries to construct the Spatial Matching for Scenic Byway (SMSB). Firstly, GIS analysis is used to identify the spatial clustering characteristics and distribution patterns of tourist resource points and tourist interest points, and the spatial matching measurement model is used to evaluate the spatial matching degree of the two and classify the matching types. Secondly, considering terrain slope, land use type, ecological sensitivity and other limiting factors, we constructed the suitability evaluation index system of scenic route selection through weighted superposition analysis, and divided the spatial suitability zoning. Again, the data of self-driving tourists' points of interest, OSM road network and tourist resource points are sequentially rasterized and superimposed to generate a node raster, and the spatial nodes are screened out in combination with the assessment of the current situation. Finally, based on the results of the above three steps-spatial matching degree, spatial suitability and spatial nodes-scenic route selection planning of the self-drive tour is carried out on the basis of the existing road network. The empirical test in Western Fujian found that the SMSB routing method overcomes the limitations of the traditional scenic route slecetion method that relies on a single distribution of tourism resources or tourist interest points, makes up for the lack of quantitative assessment of the relationship between the spatial distribution of tourism resources and the demand preferences of the self-driving tourists in the existing studies, simplifies the complexity of the spatial node selection procedure, and enhances the scientificity and accuracy of the scenic route routing.

Tourist green consumption behavior is a critical pathway for achieving sustainable tourism development. This study systematically reviews relevant literature in both Chinese and English and, from the theoretical perspective of a “dynamic process and closed-loop system”, proposes a three-stage conceptual core for tourist green consumption behavior. It clarifies the influencing factors at each stage to explain the transition mechanisms between them, thereby constructing an integrated research framework. The main findings are as follows: (1) tourist green consumption behavior is a dynamic concept characterized by feedback cycles, which can be divided into three stages: “Intention → Behavior → Aftereffect.” (2) The development of this behavior is influenced by multiple internal and external factors, and its evolution materializes as a three-stage transformation mechanism: “Attitude-Behavior Translation → Behavior Maintenance → Intention Regeneration.” (3) The integrated research framework of “theoretical perspective, conceptual definition, influencing factors, and outcomes” for tourist green consumption behavior takes the “three-stage, three-transformation” process-mechanism as its logical thread. It incorporates multiple behavioral theories, such as the theory of planned behavior and social cognitive theory, to explain its transformation processes, and employs a mixed-methods approach for validation. Consequently, this study provides a systematic approach to overcome the fragmented perspectives prevalent in existing research, offering significant insights for deepening the theoretical understanding of tourist green consumption behavior and guiding managerial practices.

Under the guidance of the “dual-carbon” goal, the fast-growing tourism industry must take a green and low-carbon development path. The study employs provincial panel data from China between 2000 and 2022 to construct the tourism development level index. Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), it tests whether tourism development can reduce regional per capita carbon emissions, explores the differentiated impacts of tourism development on carbon emissions and their specific mechanisms, and analyses the spatial effects of such impacts. The findings indicate that: (1) within the tourism-extended EKC framework, the inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and regional carbon emissions has been validated, and tourism development can reduce regional per capita carbon emissions in the long term. (2) The panel threshold regression model further reveals that the impact of tourism development on regional per capita carbon emissions exhibits a nonlinear pattern, and the impact of tourism development on carbon emissions varies across different levels of urbanization. (3) Accommodation and transportation are the primary sources of tourism-related carbon emissions. The number of star-rated hotels and the stock of new energy vehicles serve as mediating variables influencing tourism's impact on regional carbon emissions. (4) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the carbon reduction effect of tourism development is weaker in eastern provinces and optimal in western provinces, and tourism development significantly reduces per capita carbon emissions in surrounding regions.

In the Internet era, network attention is a key way to obtain industrial tourism information, reconfigure inter-industry interactions and connections, and to a certain extent, help the city’s high-quality development. Based on the Baidu index of industrial tourism network attention of 136 prefecture-level cities in the “Third Front Construction” area from 2011 to 2022, the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of industrial tourism network attention and urban high-quality development are visualised by using ArcGIS 10.6 software, and comprehensively analysed by using the spatial Durbin model and threshold model to analyse the spatial spillover effect and non-linear effect of industrial tourism network attention on the high-quality development of cities in the “Third Front Construction” area. The study found that: (1) the industrial tourism network attention and high-quality development index of cities in the “Third Front Construction” show the characteristics of increasing year by year in chronological order, but the industrial tourism network attention fluctuates and changes in some cities; in spatial order, it shows the characteristics of “point by point, piece by piece development”, and there exists a significant spatial correlation. (2) Improvement of industrial tourism network attention can promote the overall high-quality development of cities in the “Third Front Construction” Area, but there is a negative spatial spillover effect. In the spatial effect, the local effect is greater than the spatial spillover effect. (3) Industrial tourism network attention demonstrates geographical variations in driving high-quality development of cities within “Third Front Construction” Area. Central and eastern cities show local impacts, while western cities simultaneously exhibit positive local effects and negative spatial spillover effects. (4) The promotion effect of industrial tourism network attention on high-quality development of cities in the “Third Front Construction” Area will be enhanced with the increase of Internet penetration and the continuous upgrading of industrial structure, with a significant double-threshold effect. The results of the study are of great significance and value in grasping the attention of industrial tourism network and promoting the high-quality development of the cities in the “Third Front Construction” area from a macroscopic perspective.

Necessity and sufficiency analysis aids in deciphering complex tourism management phenomena. However, its theoretical application and technical implementation in empirical research remain significantly inadequate, often leading to misuse. This paper systematically reviewed and critically evaluated the literature on necessity and sufficiency within tourism research. The study reveals that: (1) existing research heavily concentrates on tourist behavior, extending to resident behavior, employee behavior, and economic management; however, analyses of necessity and sufficiency for key entities such as tourism destination systems and macroeconomic levels remain markedly insufficient. (2) Methodologically, while fsQCA is widely adopted alongside NCA to assess necessity, confusion in method integration and operational irregularities persist in their combined application. (3) Variable selection predominantly relies on behavioral theories, while explanations for nonlinear combinations of multiple antecedents and complex causal relationships primarily draw upon complexity and chaos theory. However, research has insufficiently analyzed the interactive mechanisms among antecedent variables. Future studies should not only deepen the focus on necessity analysis but also extend necessity and sufficiency analyses to broader topics. Additionally, efforts should be made to refine analytical frameworks and strengthen theoretical foundations.The integrated theoretical framework constructed in this paper provides an operational methodological guide and a deepened theoretical perspective for future exploration of the relationship between necessity and sufficiency in the tourism field.