The tourism region is a functional area that formed in the process of regional tourism development, which is affected by administrative division and the borders between those regions. The spreading of all-for-one tourism and the strengthening of the relationship between different tourism regions have made the synergetic development across the administrative region and regional tourism an impelling issue. This paper analyzes the coupling relationship between administrative division and regional tourism from the perspective of trans-administrative-region tourism collaboration and trans-administrative-region integration; proposes the rigid constraint effect informed by the administrative-region economic theory and potential theory, implying that the problem of the imbalance of tourism development between different administrative regions and the disconformity of the management are difficult to be solved in limited time. Meanwhile, the disconformity between the administrative region and the tourism regions leads to the human and cultural heterogeneity of the development of different tourism regions, which varied in supporting the development and management of tourism functional regions, thus the imbalance of the developing level and conflicts of those regions and the disharmony state of regional areas regarding the human-planet relations. Five research focuses are proposed by the research: The exploration of theoretical and policy innovation in promoting the collaboration between administrative regions and regional tourism; the assessment and reasons of the disconformity between administrative regions and tourism regions; the tempo-spatial process, effects and mechanism of the coupling between administrative regions and tourism regions; the path and mode for the collaborative development between administrative regions and regional tourism; and the reforms of administrative system and guarantee policy for trans-administrative-region tourism.

The unbalanced input of capital and path development dependence brought by decentralization have affected the sustainable development of Chinese tourism cities at the current stage, especially in some more mature tourism cities like Sanya. This paper analyzes the mechanism and performance of spatial imbalance development in the process of tourism urbanization from the perspective of decentralization, proposes optimization measures to promote the development of tourism cities, and conducts an empirical analysis. It is found that the administrative decentralization and local government competition under the block structure induce the distribution of elements in different functional spaces of tourism cities, leading in the lack of profit opportunities for interest subjects and uneven distribution of tourism economic benefits, thus resulting in the creation of spatial imbalance in tourism cities. To achieve balanced development, it is necessary to consider multiple interests, reconstruct the element-input structure of tourism city, and optimize the governmental management organization, regional functional space and industrial space of tourism city. The development of Sanya as a tourism city has gone through four stages: administrative decentralization, urban empowerment, functional empowerment, and empowerment innovation. Decentralization has continuously guided the development of Sanya City from spatial unbalanced accumulation to balanced dissolution, including the institutional construction that guides the development of urban-rural-ecological regional spatial classification, the establishment of top-down decentralization and market-based vertical and horizontal linkage, bottom-up industrial linkage and community participation in value co-creation. It is particularly important to establish a new path of integration, synergy, innovation through the nurturing of multiple mechanisms. The results of this paper provide a new perspective for recognizing and understanding the spatial differentiation that occurs in the process of tourism urbanization in China.

The fragmented “territorial management” mode is difficult to meet the development demands of cross-regional tourist destinations and the consumption demands of tourists. Adopting the research line of “case selection, mode summary and development suggestion” and the perspective of collaboration maturity, this paper selects three interregional tourism destinations in different stages of cooperation for analysis, and summarizes their development modes, specific measures and development experience. The results show that: The Hukou Waterfall tourist area of the Yellow River is the first successful cross-regional joint creation of 5A scenic spot in China, which belongs to the mature collaboration stage with a government-led multi-regional development mode. Wugong Mountain scenic spot is the first scenic spot in China to solve the problem of “one mountain, three governance modes” through coordinated legislation. It is located in the initiative stage, with a legislative-guaranteed and enterprise-unified-operation development mode. However, the cross-regional collaborative development of the Tiantangzhai scenic spot still remains undeveloped, and its development mode implies a mutual independent operation and superficial collaboration. The research also found that the development of mature cross-regional tourist destinations needs the top-level design of higher administrative level government; large strategic project significantly strengthens the regional cooperation willingness; regional cooperative legislation is an innovative means of collaborative development. Unified brand publicity and modern management are conducive to the mature development of tourist destinations.

As an interlocking area between adjacent administrative regions, the integrated natural geographical units within scenic spots are relatively fragmented due to the existence of administrative boundaries, making them a special type of regional spatial governance. This paper takes 306 5A-level scenic spots in China as the research objects, uses map data and GIS spatial analysis to draw the following conclusions: (1) There are 69 5A-level cross-boundary scenic spots in China, with an overall clustered spatial distribution pattern. (2) Cross-boundary scenic spots can be divided from the perspective of development purpose, type of primary resource, boundary scale and cross-boundary unit. Tourism development and management of different types of cross-boundary scenic spots are distinct. (3) There are four different manage-ment modes for cross-boundary scenic spots: government-led, multi-zone governance, manage-ment committee governance and enterprise-led. Each management mode has both periodical characteristics and common problems. Finally, based on different spatial scales, this paper puts forward three specific integration paths: boundary modification of adjacent administration regions; horizontal connection between government departments; unified management mode by tourism enterprises. This study aims to break through the boundary shielding effect and achieve effective regional tourism cooperative governance.

Inter-administrative governance of tourism space is one of the important challenges facing the systematic and refined transformation of territorial space governance. As a typical cross-administrative tourism space, research on the spatial production and optimized governance of scenic byways is applicable to other linear space of tourism. This study describes the spatial characteristics of tourism scenic byways and deconstructs the spatial production mechanism of tourism scenic byways from the perspective of spatial representation, spatial practice and representation of space based on the spatial production theory. In terms of the spatial representation, the national policy leads the rapid reproduction of tourist road space. The decentralization of power structure creates disordered space utilization. Administrative position and economic defference make the construction and management of tourism scenic byway fragmented. For spatial practice, tourist scenic byway creates leisure landscape and tourism space through longitudinal connection and lateral extension, forming a mixed space of tourism flow and general traffic flow, driving the unbalanced development of commercial and tourism space along the byway. In terms of space representation, community residents resist the facts of “over-internalization” and differentiation generated from the result of space representation, and tourists will reduce the use of tourist scenic byway in the process of spatial competition with transportation personnel. Informed by the above results, this paper puts forward the optimization path of tourism scenic byway space production, including: to promote the coordination and unification of the power structure of “tourist scenic byway concept”; to improve the fairness and justice of the regional benefit of tourism scenic byway; and to protect the rights of space subjects, including community residents and scenic byway users.