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.

Ecotourism resilience reflects the ability of tourism ecosystem to cope with internal and external shocks, and reveals the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics and driving factors of this ability, which is an important reference value for promoting the sustainable development of ecotourism.

Based on the theoretical connotation of ecotourism resilience, the evaluation index system was constructed from four dimensions of economic resilience, social resilience, cultural resilience and ecological resilience. The entropy weight TOPSIS method and geo-detector were used to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of the ecotourism resilience and the influencing factors of the Dongting lake area from 2002 to 2022.

1) During the past 20 years, the ecotourism resilience has been weak, and the overall trend of “W” shape fluctuation evolution showed that ecotourism is subject to strong internal and external shocks, and the development is unstable; in the four dimensional indexes, ecological resilience > cultural resilience > economic resilience > social resilience; 2) The spatial difference in the ecotourism resilience is remarkable, showing the trend of high in the east and low in the west, high in the south and low in the north, forming a belt-like distribution pattern centered on Yueyang City, Yiyang City and Changde City and radiating outward; 3) Factors such as the level of the tourism economy, the strength of government regulation, the state of the ecological environment, and the endowment of tourism resources are the main driving forces influencing the spatio-temporal evolution of the ecotourism resilience.

The ecotourism resilience is weak, and the difference between counties is obvious in the Dongting lake region. Therefore, strengthening government regulation, activating tourism economic potential, optimizing ecotourism environment, and advancing integrated development of culture and tourism are the keys to improving the resilience of ecotourism.

To reveal the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of eco-efficiency in Dongting lake area, and to explore its influencing factors, so as to provide a reference basis for the coordinated development of economic development and ecological environment.

Using resource consumption as an input indicator and economic development and environmental pollution as desired and non-desired outputs, the super-efficiency SBM model, exploratory spatial data analysis, standard deviation ellipse and geoprobe were used to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of the eco-efficiency of the 17 county units in Dongting lake region from 2014 to 2023.

1) The temporal variation of eco-efficiency showed a rising trend year by year during the study period, in which the growth rate was faster in 2014-2019, slower in 2020-2022 due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, and recovered in 2023, showing a spatial distribution characterized by a higher level in the northwest and a lower level in the southeast; 2) The spatial correlation feature of eco-efficiency showed significant positive global spatial autocorrelation as a whole, with the strongest clustering in 2016, and four types of clustering existed in the local autocorrelation, namely, low-low, low-high, high-low and high-high. The spatial dispersion of eco-efficiency has basically stabilized in terms of spatio-temporal migration characteristics, with the center of gravity located in the central region of Dongting lake, and gradually moving to the positive west direction; 3) The level of economic development, industrial structure proportion, scientific and technological development, environmental governance capacity and urbanization level are important influence factors on the spatiotemporal evolution of eco-efficiency.

The overall eco-efficiency of the Dongting lake area is at a low level, and there are large regional differences. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen scientific and technological innovation, promote the application and promotion of environmental protection technology, accelerate the upgrading and transformation of industrial structure and improve the green productivity of enterprises, strengthen cross-regional cooperation, promote the coordination of economic growth and ecological protection, improve the efficiency of resource utilization, and promote synergistic regional development.

Diagnose the adaptability of tourism industry and eco-environment, and provide reference basis for high-quality development of tourism industry and sustainable bearing of eco-environment.

The evaluation index system of tourism industry and eco-environmental adaptability was constructed from two subsystems of the tourism industry and eco-environment and three dimensions of pressure, state, and response. The entropy weight TOPSIS method, adaptability model, standard deviation ellipse, and geo-detector were used to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of tourism industry and eco-environmental adaptability in the Dongting lake area from 2012 to 2021.

1) The tourism industry index showed a trend of “rising-declining-rising”, the eco-environment index showed a fluctuating upward trend, and the tourism industry and eco-environmental adaptability index had significant spatiotemporal differences, showing a “basin-type” spatial distribution pattern with lower in the central area and higher in the surrounding areas. 2) The trend of adaptive spatiotemporal migration in the last 10 years was dominated by the east-west direction, the degree of spatial dispersion had shown a trend of first expanding and then narrowing, with the center of gravity located in the central part of Dongting lake, and the agglomeration and the position of the center of gravity had been basically stable. 3) The type of tourism industry and eco-environmental adaptability was dominated by low adaptation, with counties accounting for 41.17% of the total, showing a spatial distribution pattern of edge areas > peripheral areas > central areas. 4) Tourism resource endowment, government regulation efforts, economic development level and environmental governance capacity were important factors driving the spatiotemporal evolution of tourism industry and eco-environmental adaptability in Dongting lake area.

The tourism industry and eco-environmental adaptability is lower in Dongting lake region, and the differences between counties are large, and the problems of unbalanced and inadequate development are still prominent. The future development of tourism industry should be based on the eco-environment carrying capacity, scientific development of tourism resources, strengthening regional tourism cooperation, and improving the adaptability of tourism industry and ecological environment in Dongting lake region.