Border tourism has an important impact on the economic development of border areas and the relationship between neighboring countries. It is the main means to promote the development of regional integration and strengthen cross-border tourism cooperation. Although domestic scholars have studied the concept, function, and influence of border tourism, compared with foreign related research, there are still some problems such as limited research topics, insufficient research depth and lack of comprehensive understanding. Based on 1 124 SSCI English literatures published in English journals from 1995 to 2021, this paper makes a visual analysis of the time distribution, keyword emergence and clustering characteristics of border tourism research field, and comprehensively combs the research progress and main contents of foreign border tourism. It is found that the research on border tourism in English literature can be divided into the initial research stage, the developmental research stage, and the innovational research stage. And studies are mainly concentrated in the fields of geography and political science. With the complexity and dynamics of border issues, the research perspective of border tourism begins to shift to economics and management. The main research topics include cross-border tourism attraction, cross-border tourism impact, border effect and cross-border conflict and cooperation. This article proposes that China’s research on cross-border tourism should also highlight the perspective of tourism disciplines, expand the research theories and methods applied in border tourism research, and put forward “Chinese plans” according to local conditions while emphasizing the differences of cross-border tourism.

Agglomeration, diffusion and retardation are the three effects generated by border tourism. The measurement of retardation effect not only serves as the basis of border tourism research, but also contributes to decision-making for promoting high-quality development of border tourism. Taking Yunnan Province as an example, this paper adopts gravity model to measure the retarding effect from the perspective of border tourism system. The results show that: (1) retarding effect exists in border tourism, and the retarding effect coefficient is 4.388 under the basic gravity model and 4.326 under the extended gravity model. The retarding effect might be exaggerated in previous studies. (2) Policy advantages have a strong supporting effect on border tourism, followed by domestic and foreign GDP and tourism resources. (3) Spatial distance has a hindering effect on border tourism. In the context of spatiotemporal compression, attention should be paid to tourists’ crossing functional distance. A national border not only acts the traditional function of border security and territorial sovereignty, but also has the realistic need of economic and cultural exchange, so the retarding effect of border tourism should be addressed scientifically, “opening or closing border accordingly”. In order to promote the high-quality development of border tourism, border tourism governance should be strenghened from the aspects of enhancing tourists' awareness, creating border attractions, pursuing transportation improvement and policy support, and advancing academic research.

Border tourism is a very special form of tourism with a nature of political sensitivity, which creates a sense of insecurity in the development process; the insecurity has an impact on the further development of border tourism. To analyze the relationship between national security and border tourism, this study selects a representative border tourism city in Northeast China as cases to study the national security issues in the development of border tourism. The study proposed that social security is a common issue affecting border tourism security in Northeast China, and the security of border tourism varies in different areas. Tourist security and cultural security are the issues that influence tourism on China-Korea border and the China-Mongolia border, whilst economic security, ecological resource security, and residents’security are the issues affecting the tourism security of the Sino-Russian border. The main causes of border tourism security are geopolitical factors, socio-economic factors and socio-cultural factors. It is suggested to strengthen the security governance of border tourism in Northeast China from four aspects, including the improvement of control system of border tourism security, the integration of the in-depth development of “Two Tourism Zones”, the advancement of domestic and foreign cultural exchanges, and the awareness intensification of the Chinese nation’s community.

In the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese border tourism has entered a new development stage. Xinjiang, positioned as the core zone of the Silk Road Economic Belt, has seen increasing strategic advantages, and its border tourism is increasingly being promoted by different levels of governments. Drawing on first-hand data mainly through semi-structured interviews with government and business representatives in Khorgos on the China-Kazakhstan border, in combination with rich secondary sources of data, this study sets to unveil the evolution of Xinjiang’s border tourism development and its affecting factors. The findings show that border tourism in Xinjiang has gone through two stages, namely inbound tours for shopping and trade in the 1990s, and domestic tours for border port sightseeing since the 21st century. China’s geopolitical and geo-economic relations with neighboring countries, Xinjiang’s security situation, location of border port, regional socio-economic development level, and tourism supply level are identified as the major determinants of Xinjiang’s border tourism development. The study advances the understandings of regional difference in terms of Chinese border tourism development, and offers practical implications for border tourism development in Xinjiang.

As a key factor affecting national tourism image and international tourist decision-making, national tourism destination personality is of great significance for differentiated marketing targeting different tourists generating countries. In this paper, content analysis method is used to analyze the network videos of bloggers in three Southeast Asian countries, and grounded theory is used to analyze the interview content of international students in China and their relatives in these three countries, so as to explore the intensity, similarities and differences in the perception of China’s tourist destinations’ personality in different Southeast Asian countries. The results show that: the perception intensity of China’s tourist destination’s personality dimensions in Southeast Asian countries are ability, sincerity, charm, friendliness and chivalry in order; there are differences in the perception of personality dimensions of China tourist destinations among these countries. Among them, people in Vietnam and Myanmar generally have a positive perception, which is “friendly”, “charming”, “chivalrous” and “gentle”. The perception in Laos is relatively negative, and the perception dimension is “spontaneity” and “ego”. Therefore, it is suggested that China should strengthen cultural exchanges with Southeast Asian countries, distinguish people’s perceptual personality in different countries, further strengthen the positive personality perception, and adjust and optimize the publicity strategy for countries with negative personality perception.