As the tourism industry undergoes transformation and upgrading, tourism supply chains (TSC) and tourism distribution channels (TDC) have gradually become key factors for enterprises in enhancing their core competitiveness. However, the academic community has yet to reach consensus on the conceptual boundaries and interrelationship of these two constructs, limiting the capacity of theory in guiding practice. This study adopts a systematic literature review approach, analyzing 119 articles from leading international journals. Through systematic synthesis and in-depth analysis, it clarifies the evolutionary trajectories of TSC and TDC, examines their conceptual similarities and differences, critically appraises the scholarly schools within each field, and develops an integrative theoretical framework grounded in general systems theory. The study yields two key findings: (1) TSC and TDC exhibits a hierarchical nested “system-subsystem,” where TSC operates as a complete operational system spanning from resource integration to value realization, while TDC functions as a boundary subsystem that connects the system with its external environment; the two achieve value creation through functional interdependence and boundary coordination. (2) In the context of digitalization, the TSC and TDC are deeply coupled, forming three value chain models: supply-push, demand-pull, and adaptive co-creation. They are applicable to different resource endowments, technological environments, and market characteristics. Among these, the adaptive co-creation model represents an emerging trend in which industry organization shifts from linear structures toward ecosystem-based arrangements. This study bridges the disciplinary divide between operations management and marketing management in tourism research, extends the explanatory scope of tourism supply chain theory, and offers practical guidance for tourism firms in aligning supply chain development with distribution channel management.
In the context of the digital age, the essence of tourism supply chain integration has evolved from traditional efficiency-oriented linear process collaboration into a a digital-driven process of order reconstruction and value symbiosis. Based on a bibliometric analysis of core domestic and international literature using CiteSpace, this study systematically traces the evolution trajectory of research hotspots in this field. By integrating network embeddedness theory and institutional work theory, it constructs an analytical framework for digital tourism supply chain integration. The study holds that the deep foundation of digital tourism supply chain integration is the network embeddedness structure reshaped by digital technologies, while its promotion mechanism relies on the institutional work deployed by multiple actors to cope with structural constraints. Together, these elements form a dynamic loop of “embedded structure-institutional work-re-embedded structure”. The core theoretical contribution of this study are threefold: it elevates integration to an analyzable theoretical object of “structure-practice-order”, it reveals the coupling driving mechanism between “structural conditions” and “institutional practices” and it expands the understanding of integration efficacy to the generation and reproduction of relational, structural, and institutional capital, thereby systematically elucidating how digital tourism supply chain integration fosters long-term resilience and sustainability within industrial networks. This study provides a new analytical lens for understanding industrial ecosystem governance in the digital era and proposes directions for contextualized comparative research on embedded structures and institutional work.
In the context of digitalization, online attention is widely regarded as a leading indicator for tourism demand forecasting. Existing studies have primarily focused on the macro-level correlations between online attention and tourist flows at the scenic spot or destination level. However, studies on how the online attention of service providers within the tourism supply chain drives tourist volume, particularly regarding its leading predictive mechanism, remain insufficient. To this end, this study aims to explore the dynamic leading impact of online attention towards tourism accommodation and catering suppliers on scenic spot tourist volume from a micro-supplier perspective, integrating Signaling Theory and Peer Effects. Using the Jiuzhaigou scenic area as a case study, data regarding to accommodation and catering suppliers were collected from social media platforms during both peak and off-peak seasons, and a comprehensive online attention index was constructed via principal component analysis (PCA). Through cross-correlation function analysis on multiple data sources, the findings reveal three main points: (1) during the peak season, changes in the growth rate of tourism accommodation suppliers' online attention significantly lead changes in the growth rate of scenic spot tourist volume, with a lead period of approximately 18-19 days. （2） A rapid increase in suppliers’ online attention tends to decelerate the subsequent acceleration of tourist flow growth, but this negative correlation is not significant during the off-peak season. (3) This leading relationship demonstrates statistical robustness, indicating that dynamic changes in supplier-level online attention during the peak season can effectively predict short-term tourist flow trends. The study uncovers the micro-mechanism through which online signals influence tourism demand via social diffusion, providing theoretical foundations and practical insights for refined management and proactive decision-making in the tourism supply chain.
Driven by the global “dual carbon” strategy aimed at achieving a deep decoupling between value creation and carbon emissions, digital technology has emerged as a pivotal engine for resource optimization and low-carbon evolution in exhibition supply chains. This research aims to reveal the underlying mechanism by which digital empowerment facilitates a marginal reduction in carbon intensity within these complex service networks. Integrating the Technology-Value-Organization (T-V-O) framework, the study adopts a longitudinal case study methodology to conduct an in-depth tracing of the multi-decadal digital transformation trajectory of the Canton Fair. The results indicate that: (1) the low-carbon evolution of the supply chain is fundamentally a dynamic game between “pull” and “resistance” forces. Specifically, low-carbon performance dividends gained by nodes and the green infrastructure empowerment provided by the lead firm constitute the core pull factors, while structural resistance is rooted in long-standing, carbon-intensive path dependencies, with organizational inertia exerting significant stage-specific moderation on the transition process. (2) The study further identifies that digital transformation facilitates this evolution by leveraging information transparency, cost-offsetting, and collaborative learning effects. By activating proxy paths such as material decoupling through paperless operations and business travel substitution via virtual-real mapping practices, digital technology enables “digital dividends to offset green premiums”,thereby establishing economic rationality for green practices. Consequently, this process drives the transition of the supply chain governance paradigm from “isolated node response” to “full-chain digital-intelligent synergy”. These findings not only extend the organizational application boundaries of technology adoption theory but also provide universal mechanistic insights and strategic guidelines for achieving sustainable, high-quality development and carbon-neutral collaborative governance in global service-oriented supply chains.
Rural homestays, as key vehicles for rural revitalization, play an important role in stimulating local development and catering to diversified tourism demand. However, field evidence shows that although multi-actor cooperation is often easy to initiate, it is difficult to sustain. In several cases, collaboration weakened over time despite policy support, community participation and benefit-sharing arrangements, suggesting that existing studies have not fully addressed the root causes of symbiotic instability. To fill this research gap, drawing upon symbiosis theory and the supply chain collaboration perspective, this study adopts a dual-case approach and develops a “motivation-process-outcome” framework to examine how symbiotic relationships between a rural homestay and its local community are formed and sustained. The results show that: (1) symbiosis is built upon member relationships, governance mechanisms and sharing logic, and manifests in two distinct modes-“institutionalized, platform-oriented” and “localized, relationship-oriented”; (2) the formation process follows a dynamic evolution path of “resource endowment-resource bricolage-supply chain collaboration-symbiosis”, yet with divergent trajectories across the two modes; (3) supply chain collaboration in rural settings features a dual logic of vertical institutional integration and horizontal relational embeddedness. More importantly, the stability of symbiosis hinges on whether villagers and village collectives can embed themselves as value-providing nodes within the supply chain ecosystem and form collaborative mechanisms with government and market actors. This study extends the application of supply chain collaboration to socially embedded service ecosystems and advances the understanding of how homestay-community symbiosis emerges and stabilizes for future rural tourism governance.
Against the backdrop of deep integration between culture and tourism and accelerating smart transformation, popular cultural venues face highly concentrated and recurring holiday visitor peaks, placing higher demands on the resilience of smart tourism service supply chains. To study how smart tourism service supply chains withstand peak pressure, this paper examines ten popular museums during the National Day holiday. From the perspective of tourist reviews and grounded in classic supply chain resilience theory, a four-dimensional framework is constructed: perception and early warning, scheduling response, experience assurance, and collaborative recovery. Using two-way content analysis, online reviews from normal and peak periods are compared to reveal the failure mechanisms of resilience. The findings indicate that: (1) supply chain resilience is uneven, with front-end functions adapting better while back-end services decline. Experience assurance becomes the main weakness, largely due to physical and service constraints. (2) Resilience performance differs significantly by museum type. Broad-appeal museums see a sharp drop in visitor experience. Regional hub museums show delayed service closed-loops. Theme-based museums perform most stably due to better visitor-base matching. (3) The propagation of negative reviews is nonlinearly, primarily driven by the dual constraints of unstable technology systems and crowded physical spaces. This study extends the application of supply chain resilience theory to public cultural services and offers practical guidance for cultural and tourism venues to manage extreme visitor flows more effectively.
Nowadays, with less outdoor time and yet more screen time, children are seen a changing interactive pattern with nature. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this process and provided a time window for studying the differences between rural and urban children in nature-deficit disorder. By introducing rural and urban perspectives, this study does iconographic analysis of 111 post-pandemic drawings themed Nature and Me by children in fourth-grade in F City, conducts triangulation by doing semi-structured interviews with selected students and teachers, and follows an analysis framework of tracing the origin of rural-urban differences, corroborative data collection, dual impact analysis, and stratified intervention design. Findings reveal the following: (1) urban and rural children show a gap in nature disconnection. For urban children, though they eager to contact with nature, but with limited access, they exhibit physical alienation from nature. However, for rural children, who have access to nature but lack willingness to embrace it, they show onsite alienation from nature. (2) The drawings by rural and urban children show significant differences in visual representation, with drawings by urban children displaying deficient natural elements, simplified self-images, and homogenized emotional expressions, whereas drawings by rural children demonstrating emotional disconnection despite richer natural elements. (3) Psychological impacts are heterogeneous, with urban children presenting narrowed natural cognition and psychological regression, while rural children maintaining higher psychological resilience due to regular nature contact; (4) A three-tier intervention framework of immersion, education, and healing is constructed to provide systematic response strategies for children with nature-deficit disorder. This study provides micro-level evidence, theoretical insights, and practical recommendations for understanding urban-rural heterogeneity in nature-deficit disorder in children.
Differences in tourists’aesthetic experience between urban and rural landscapes promote tourism flow and spatial interaction between urban and rural areas. Taking three typical urban-rural tourism spatial combinations, namely Shanghai-Songjiang, Suzhou-Zhouzhuang, and Hangzhou-Anji, as cases, this study adopts an integrated method of UGC text analysis, field behavioral observation and grounded theory. Based on the “space-cognition-practice” paradigm, an analytical framework is constructed to explore the internal mechanism of tourists’aesthetic psychological transfer and transformation across spaces. The results show that: (1) urban aesthetic characteristics (symbolic consumption, cultural refinement, ecological ornamental value) and rural aesthetic characteristics (natural authenticity, cultural originality, ecological productivity) are the triggering factors for tourists’aesthetic psychological transfer and transformation across urban-rural spaces; (2) Aesthetic imagery acts as the core mediator connecting urban-rural aesthetic stimuli and behavioral responses through the three-dimensional mechanism of “perceptual coding-meaning grafting-emotional attachment”;(3) In urban-rural spatial interaction, the transfer of tourists’aesthetic psychology follows the progressive path of “perceptual trigger-imagery conduction-emotional precipitation”, while the transformation undergoes the evolutionary process of “cognitive processing-behavioral decision-emotional attachment”, forming an inherent logical connection from quantitative accumulation to qualitative leap; (4) This mechanism presents significant scenario adaptability. Due to differences in aesthetic characteristics, the three urban-rural interactive spaces have formed three dominant evolutionary paths of aesthetic psychology: emotional attachment, cultural exploration, and practical participation. This study fills the research gap of aesthetic psychology in urban-rural spaces, extends the application scenarios of the “space-cognition-practice” paradigm in tourism research, and provides theoretical references and practical pathways for the high-quality development of culture and tourism as well as urban-rural integrated development..
Red tourism is currently undergoing a digital transformation. Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), which is creative, efficient and adaptable in various scenarios, can effectively improve the promotional efficacy of red tourist attractions. Combining experimental methods with grounded theory, this study investigates the factors influencing tourists’ acceptance of GenAI promotional images in red tourism attractions. The findings indicate that: (1) GenAI possesses distinct technical advantages that enhance image aesthetics while ensuring visual fidelity, demonstrating high feasibility and practical value for promotional applications in red tourism attractions. (2) Tourists’ acceptance of GenAI images is comprehensively affected by multiple dimensions, including perceived image quality, perceived image theme, perceived image trust, image portfolio presentation strategies, and acceptable application contexts. (3) These factors operate under a distinct hierarchy of priorities. Perceived image quality serves as the primary determinant, dictating whether tourists will notice, gaze at, and explore the images. Building upon this visual engagement, tourists evaluate how effectively the technology supports the expression of the red theme and its cultural connotations. Once the technology application is perceived to match the theme, tourists turn their focus to the credibility of the visual information. Conditioned on image trust, tourists then evaluate the appropriateness of the image portfolio’s presentation strategy based on their own physical, psychological, cognitive and behavioral features. Finally, as their comprehension deepens, tourists consider and judge the suitability of GenAI application within specific red tourism scenarios. This study provides a theoretical reference for leveraging GenAI to optimize image construction and promotional efficacy for red tourist attractions.
The distribution structure of tourist source markets is a classic topic in tourism geography and an important basis for tourism markets. Based on the circle-layer structure theory and relying on mobile phone signaling data, this study employs methods such as market concentration ratio, geographical concentration index, tourist attraction radius, spatial usage curve, natural breakpoints method, and competitive state matrix circle-layer analysis to construct a framework for analyzing the circle-layer structure of tourism markets. It conducts a quantitative analysis of the tourist source circle-layer structure across 31 provincial administrative regions in China from 2023 to 2025. The research reveals that: (1) The intra-provincial and inter-provincial tourist source markets in each provincial administrative region exhibit a “7:3” structural characteristic, with intra-provincial tourist sources constituting the market foundation of domestic tourism for each provincial administrative region; while the inter-provincial tourist source market presents a “6:2:2” structural characteristic, indicating an overall relatively concentrated and evenly distributed developmental state. The correlation between inter-provincial tourism and the national tourism market has increased. (2) The average tourist attraction radius of each provincial administrative region in China is expanding, and the spatial usage curve of tourist flows exhibits characteristics of continuous decay, local mutations, and comprehensive coverage. 100 kilometers and 700 kilometers are key spatial segmentation lines for the average tourist attraction radius. The higher the degree of tourist source agglomeration within and around each province, the faster the decay and the more limited the leapfrog growth of medium- and long-distance tourist flows; the lower the degree of tourist source agglomeration within and around each province, the slower the decay and the greater the potential for leapfrog growth of medium- and long-distance tourist flows. (3) Taking into account the proportion of tourist sources, the distance from tourist sources, the level of geographical adjacency, the potential of tourist source markets, and their structural characteristics, the tourist source markets of each province are divided into a “core-intermediate-expansion” three-layer circle-layer structure. The contribution of the first, second, and third layers of tourist source markets to the tourism market of each province is 71.6%, 19.2%, and 9.2%, approaching a “7: 2: 1” circle structure. The study verified the applicability of the circle-layer structure theory in provincial administrative regions, extracted the linkage rule of “intra provincial agglomeration and inter provincial diffusion” in the tourism source market, identified key spatial segmentation lines and explained the mechanism of “dual decay-leapfrog growth”, quantified the three-layer circle-layer structure characteristics of “core-intermediate-expansion”, and provided scientific support for the research and decision-making of the tourism source market.
The matching between the supply and demand of tourism resources and service facilities is the key to the high-quality development of regional tourism industry. The study takes Shanxi Province as the research area, selects the POI data of three core elements of “scenic spots, accommodation, and catering” to construct the supply-side indicators, uses the Baidu Index to represent the demand-side indicators, and applies geospatial analysis techniques, the gravity model, and the Spatial Mismatch Index (SMI) method to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of “scenic spots-accommodation-catering”.Futhermore, it explores the spatial mismatch characteristics of supply and demand from multiple scales: provincial, municipal, and element category. The research findings are as follows: (1) the distribution of the three core tourism elements is mainly in the “northeast-southwest” direction. Overall, it presents a spatial agglomeration pattern characterized of “agglomeration at the central polar core, gradient extension in the north-south direction, and significant differences between the east and the west”. Among them, scenic spots show the characteristics of a single core with multiple poles and patch-like agglomeration. The spatial distribution patterns of accommodation and scenic spots highly match each other, following a distribution law of core radiation and city-scenic spot coordination. Catering has the strongest full-area coverage, taking into account both tourism consumption and local people’s livelihood needs. (2) At the provincial level, the internal mismatch within the supply-side of the three tourism elements is much lower than the mismatch between supply and demand. The main contradiction of the supply-demand mismatch is the imbalance in the north-south direction, presenting a spatial characteristic of “supply in the south and demand in the north”. (3) At the municipal scale, the regional differences in mismatch characteristics are significant. Jinzhong and Yuncheng have the most prominent positive high-mismatch contradictions, Changzhi has the best supply-demand matching degree, and Xinzhou has a significant negative high-mismatch. (4) At the element category level, there is a structural imbalance. There is a shortage of 5A-level scenic spots, star-rated hotels, homestays, and special cuisine, while there is an excess of 3A-level scenic spots, inns, and Chinese restaurants. In the future, the supply-demand mismatch problem can be solved and the high-quality development of regional tourism can be promoted through three paths: strengthening regional coordination and linkage, precisely matching supply and demand through classified policies, and optimizing the supply structure to improve quality.
Ecological restoration and recreational utilization of abandoned industrial and mining areas are crucial for territorial spatial optimization. This study classifies the restoration and utilization modes into wetland parks, comprehensive green spaces, and mountain parks. Using remote sensing interpretation, landscape indices, the InVEST model, the ESV and ESTD methods, we analyzed the spatiotemporal evolution and landscape ecological coupling benefits of these areas in Xuzhou City from 2000 to 2023. Results indicate that: (1) the number and area of abandoned zones exhibited an “initial gentle growth, mid-term acceleration, and late-stage stabilization” trajectory. The spatial evolution shifted from urban agglomeration to suburban expansion. Comprehensive green spaces clustered in urban areas, wetland parks concentrated in northern subsidence zones, and mountain parks converged in urban and eastern suburban regions. (2) The landscape pattern transitioned from fragmented and irregular to continuous and balanced, with enhanced diversity and heterogeneity, reflecting a stable and rational evolution. (3) Habitat quality was dominated by low-to-medium-grade patches. The ESV showed an initial gentle start, mid-term explosive growth, and late-stage high-level stabilization. High-value areas radiated outward from urban centers, while the ESV structure transitioned from climate regulation by woodlands to hydrological regulation by water bodies. (4) Ecosystem services evolved from trade-offs between provisioning and other services to full-dimensional synergy. However, ecological benefit differentiation remained significant: wetland parks showed high-value synergy in core waters; comprehensive green spaces exhibited early local trade-offs and later synergistic gains through optimized vegetation and facilities; mountain parks achieved stable synergy between cultural and other services after overcoming early marginal compression from urban development. The study proposes differentiated restoration strategies, providing theoretical and practical references for similar resource-based regions.
Promoting the synergistic evolution of high-quality tourism development and ecological efficiency is an intrinsic requirement for realizing Chinese-style modernization in ecologically fragile regions. Focusing on the Wuling Mountains area, this study constructs a comprehensive evaluation index system to analyze this relationship. The study employs the entropy weight- Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method, the super-efficiency Slack Based Measure (SBM) model, and the Haken model to measure the levels of high-quality tourism development, ecological efficiency, and their degree of synergy. Furthermore, the geographical detector model was used to reveal the dominant driving factors and interaction mechanisms of the synergy level, while the Cellular Automata (CA)-Markov model simulates the evolution of synergy levels under future scenarios. The results indicate that: (1) both high-quality tourism development and ecological efficiency in the Wuling Mountains area exhibit a fluctuating upward trend, yet they demonstrate characteristic spatial misalignment; (2) Tourism high-quality development was identified as the order parameter; under its dominance the coupled system has transitioned from a low level of synergy to a moderate one, exhibiting a “core-periphery” spatial differentiation pattern with growth poles such as Zhangjiajie and southeastern Chongqing; (3) Market size, industrial structure, and urbanization rate are the core drivers of the spatial differentiation of synergy levels, and significant enhancing interactions generally exist among these factors; (4) Future simulations suggest that under the “green development strategy” scenario, the synergy level in the Wuling Mountains area is projected to reach an optimal state by 2035. This study helps deepen the understanding of the synergistic relationship between tourism development and eco-efficiency in ecologically fragile areas, and provides a reference for similar regions to promote green tourism transformation and regional sustainable development.
Clean energy transportation is an important part of promoting the tourism industry to respond to the national “dual carbon” goals and achieve low-carbon transformation. This paper comprehensively employs the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model, Word2vec model and BERT model to construct an integrated topic mining model suitable for research on the application of clean energy transportation systems in tourism scenarios. Based on core data from domestic and international literature databases and the incoPat patent database, this paper quantitatively analyzes relevant research achievements from 2001 to 2024, summarizes the evolution path of research topics in this field, analyzes research frontiers through three-dimensional indicators of novelty, attention and influence, and identifies current research shortcomings. The results show that research in this field presents clear phased evolution characteristics: the germination period (2001—2017) focuses on the layout of clean energy transportation infrastructure and exploration of business models; the deepening period (2018—2021) centers on user behavior and multi-technology adaptation; the systematization period (2022—2024) shifts to ecological collaboration of clean energy transportation vehicles application and multi-modal transportation network integration. On this basis, the evolution logic driven by the two main lines of “user perception-network collaboration” is further refined. In response to the research shortcomings of collaborative faults, institutional absence and empirical weakness revealed by quantitative analysis, the future research path is proposed from three dimensions of technological breakthroughs, institutional innovation and behavior guidance, in order to provide overall theoretical support and forward-looking research direction guidance for the clean transformation of tourism transportation systems with vehicles as the core.
As a key factor to measure the sustainable development of tourist destinations, tourism ecological security is of great significance to the implementation of the national strategy of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin. Based on the panel data of 99 cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2004 to 2023, and the “Driving Force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response” (DPSIR) model, this paper constructs the evaluation system of tourism ecological security in the Yellow River basin, analyzes the temporal and spatial variability by using entropy method and Moran index, and explores the temporal and spatial characteristics of its influencing factors by using the weighted regression model of spatio-temporal geography. The research shows that: (1) in the order of evolution, the tourism ecological security level of the Yellow River Basin as a whole and the three major sections showed a steady improvement and the overall evolution trend was good. (2) In terms of spatial differentiation, the overall development pattern is “the downstream area is higher than the upstream area, and the provincial capital city is higher than the non-provincial capital city”, and the polarization effect is obvious. (3) In terms of spatial agglomeration, there is a significant spatial positive correlation, with “high-high” and “low-low” agglomeration types as the main types, and the imbalance of regional development is obvious. (4) In terms of influencing mechanism, the driving effect of influencing factors presents significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Among them, economic development level, tourism load level, technological innovation ability, tourism consumption ability and green ecological level mainly play a positive driving role, and the level of environmental governance shows the characteristics that negative constraints are greater than positive driving. The research can provide scientific theoretical basis and decision-making reference for the Yellow River basin division and classification policy, collaborative promotion of tourism ecological security and regional high-quality development.
