The inequities in healthcare services between regions, urban and rural, age groups and diverse income groups have been growing rapidly in China. Equal access to basic medical and healthcare services has been recognized as “a basic right of the people” by Chinese government. Spatial accessibility to healthcare facilities has received huge attention in Chinese case studies but been less studied particularly at a county level due to limited availability of high-resolution spatial data. This study is focused on measuring spatial accessibility to healthcare facilities in Deqing County. The spatial inequity between the urban (town) and rural is assessed and three scenarios are designed and built to examine which scenario is instrumental for better reducing the spatial inequity. This study utilizes highway network data, Digital Elevation Model (DEM), location of hospitals and clinics, 2010 census data at the finest level – village committee, residential building footprint and building height. Areal weighting method is used to disaggregate population data from village committee level to residential building cell level. Least cost path analysis is applied to calculate the travel time from each building cell to its closest healthcare facility. Then an integral accessibility will be calculated through weighting the travel time to the closest facility between three levels. The spatial inequity in healthcare accessibility between the town and rural areas is examined based on the coverages of areas and populations. The same method is used to compare three scenarios aimed at reducing such spatial inequity – relocation of hospitals, updates of weighting values, and the combination of both. 50.03 % of residents can reach a county hospital within 15 min by driving, 95.77 % and 100 % within 30 and 60 min respectively. 55.14 % of residents can reach a town hospital within 5 min, 98.04 % and 100 % within 15 and 30 min respectively. 57.86 % of residential building areas can reach a village clinic within 5 min, 92.65 % and 99.22 % within 10 and 15 min. After weighting the travel time between the three-level facilities, 30.87 % of residents can reach a facility within 5 min, 80.46 %% and 99.88 % within 15 and 30 min respectively. The healthcare accessibility pattern of Deqing County has exhibited spatial inequity between the town and rural areas, with the best accessibility in the capital of the county and poorest in the West of the county. There is a high negative correlation between population ageing and healthcare accessibility. Allocation of more advanced medical and healthcare equipment and highly skillful doctors and nurses to village clinics will be an efficient means of reducing the spatial inequity and further consolidating the national medical security system. GIS (Geographical Information Systems) methods have proven successful method of providing quantitative evidence for policy analysis although the data sets and methods could be further improved.

Tourist marketers rely heavily on using visual stimuli in their advertising to attract attention and improve awareness and interest of their experience. This study used eye-tracking and self-reported recall methods to investigate online tourism advertisement effectiveness based on the hierarchy of effects model. A within-subjects experimental design (n = 30) was used to examine mock advertisements (stimuli) containing various combinations of image, text and product price. Results show that the advertisement containing both image and price was least effective, while the stimuli with text and price were most effective in capturing the respondent’s attention. Advertising consisting of image, text and price generated the best recall. There were significant differences in results based on gender, task and experience.

On the background of climate change, studying tourism eco-efficiency of cities is of great significance to promote the green development of tourism. Based on the panel data of the three major urban agglomerations in China’s Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region from 2008 to 2017, this paper constructed an evaluation index system and measured the tourism eco-efficiency of 63 cities by using a hybrid distance model called Super-EBM (epsilon-based measure). We compared the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of tourism eco-efficiency in the three urban agglomerations. Furthermore, the internal factors influencing tourism eco-efficiency were explored through input–output redundancy, and the external factors were analyzed by a panel regression model. The results indicate that the tourism eco-efficiency of the three urban agglomerations in China generally shows a decreasing-rising-declining trend. Among them, the Yangtze River Delta has the highest eco-efficiency, followed by the Pearl River Delta, and the lowest in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. Moreover, there is a certain gap within each urban agglomeration. The redundancy input of labor and capital is the main internal cause of low eco-efficiency. Among the external factors, the status of the tourism industry and the level of urbanization have a positive effect on eco-efficiency, while the level of tourism development, technological innovation and investment have a negative impact on it. In the future, we must attach great importance to the development quality and overall benefit value of the tourism industry so as to achieve green and balanced development of the three major urban agglomerations in eastern China. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward targeted policy implications to improve the tourism eco-efficiency of cities.

Although previous studies have paid much attention to the impact of haze on inbound tourism, there is little empirical research on intercity differences in the spatial effects of haze pollution. Using panel data on 174 prefecture-level cities in mid-eastern China from 1998 to 2016, this paper quantitatively explores the heterogeneity of the direct and spillover effects of haze on inbound tourism. The results show that both haze pollution and inbound tourism growth in mid-eastern China have apparent spatial autocorrelation and significant spatial spillover effects. From a regional perspective, the direct and spillover effects of haze on inbound tourism are –0.052 and –0.189, respectively. From a local perspective, the spatial spillover effects of haze gradually decrease from south to north. The existence of spatial heterogeneity in the direct and spillover effects of other determinants suggests that the haze control strategy must be approached as a systematic project. This study contributes to theory by highlighting the importance of considering the spillover effects and spatial heterogeneities among destinations when evaluating the relationship between haze pollution and inbound tourism. The results have implications for local governments desiring to prevent and control haze pollution and to effectively guide inbound tourists to achieve sustainable development of inbound tourism.

The tourism efficiency in scenic areas is influenced by multi-factor joined effects, presenting multi-scale fluctuation characteristics in temporal terms and regional differences in spatial terms. This paper, by adopting the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method and Bootstrap-DEA model, calculates their tourism and decomposition efficiency. Then, based on methods of empirical mode decomposition, wavelet decomposition and Morlet wavelet multi-scale decomposition, the paper reveals the fluctuation characteristics, process and its spatial differentiation of tourism efficiency change in scenic areas from the perspective of the time–frequency domain, quantitatively investigating the important factors influencing its dynamic change, so as to summarize and refine the dynamic evolution models of tourism efficiency. Lastly, the mean generating function method is applied to conduct statistical prediction for scenic areas’ tourism efficiency in different regions, combined with the principal component method for regional integration, which provides an effective way for studying temporal–spatial differentiation characteristics of tourism efficiency change in scenic areas.

The Chinese economy has entered the phase of high-quality development. Urbanization is an important driving factor in promoting the domestic economic cycle, while tourism is an emerging force in the development of urbanization. The convergence of these two factors will contribute to the high-quality development of regional economies. By constructing an evaluation index system of tourism development and urbanization level, 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration have been identified as the study area. The study has adopted the entropy method and the coupling coordination model to analyze the comprehensive development level of tourism and urbanization and the coupling coordination relationship between them from 2008 to 2018. The results show that the Yangtze River Delta presents a spatial pattern of orderly changes in the development of tourism, forming a spatial structure of “one pole and many centers”, with Shanghai as the core. In terms of spatial distribution, it generally presents the spatial trend characteristics of “high in the east and low in the west” in the east–west direction, and “protruding in the middle and lower at both ends” in the south–north direction. Coordination and interaction are steadily developing to a high level, with significant spatial dependence and spillover effects. Based on the research results, the study applies a new development vision to explore the coupling coordination high-quality development mechanism of tourism and urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta region; the corresponding policy recommendations are discussed.