Spatio-temporal evolution and driving factors of tourism ecological resilience in the Yangtze River economic belt

Tourism ecological resilience is an important indicator of the sustainable development capacity of the tourism ecosystem, and reveals the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and driving factors, which is a reference basis for promoting the sustainable development of tourism.

Based on adaptive capacity, resilience, and transformative potential, an evaluation index system for tourism ecological resilience was constructed. Using the entropy weight-TOPSIS method, exploratory spatial data analysis, standard deviation ellipses, and the geographic detector model, the spatiotemporal evolution and driving factors of tourism ecological resilience in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2014 to 2023 were analyzed.

1) From 2014 to 2019, tourism ecological resilience showed a stable upward trend, while it exhibited a “W”-shaped pattern from 2019 to 2023, and the overall was low. There are significant spatial differences, with the distribution characterized by downstream regions>midstream regions>upstream regions. 2) The global autocorrelation of tourism ecological resilience is not significant, but local autocorrelation shows four types of clustering: high-high, high-low, low-high, and low-low. The number of districts with significant local autocorrelation has increased from 17 to 24. 3) The spatial discrete degree of tourism ecological resilience shows a pattern of contraction followed by expansion, with a clear directional trend. The azimuth angle expands each year, while the center of gravity remains largely stable. 4) Tourism resources, economic development, government regulation, and ecosystem resilience are the main factors influencing the spatiotemporal evolution of tourism ecological resilience in the Yangtze River economic belt.

The tourism ecological resilience is weak overall, and the spatial difference is obvious in the Yangtze River economic belt. Therefore, promoting the upgrading of the tourism industry, developing new tourism forms such as smart tourism and eco-tourism, increasing ecological protection and restoration, and implementing cross-regional tourism resource integration and optimal allocation are the key measures to enhance tourism ecological resilience.