Urban–Rural Integration Empowers High-Quality Development of Tourism Economy: Comparison
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Urban–rural integration has become an effective way to promote the high-quality development of the tourism economy in China’s policy evolution. Urban–rural integration has a positive empowering effect on the high-quality development of the tourism economy as a whole, with the integration of urban and rural areas in the central and eastern regions playing a considerable role.

  • urban–rural integration
  • high-quality development of the tourism economy
  • technological innovation
  • influence mechanism

1. Introduction

With the vigorous development of global service trade, tourism, as an important part of the service industry, is facing obstacles in many countries, including the lack of an intensive growth momentum [1], monotonous tourism products, the slow upgrading of the tourism industry [2], and the destruction of tourism ecology [3]. In this context, in the report of the 14th Five-Year Plan for Culture and Tourism Development, China proposed investing in the high-quality development of tourism. This plan aimed to encourage the routine service industry to achieve higher quality and diversification, and to protect the ecological environment [4].
In 2017, in the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, “high-quality development” was proposed for the first time. It was emphasized that economic vitality, innovation, and competitiveness are closely linked with green development, which is a requirement for maintaining sustainable economic development. Government departments at all levels in China have actively implemented this plan. Since 2018, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Chinese Government has issued specific construction plans for the high-quality development of the tourism economy, such as the management of tourist resorts, the construction of credit systems, the quality of tourism supply, and the online tourism market.
The high-quality development of the tourism economy involves all regions, and governments at all levels in China have formulated a series of regional tourism economic development plans. Academics have also paid increasing attention to this issue, mainly focusing on studying provinces or cities in this area [5,6][5][6]. In addition, the high-quality development of the tourism economy has multidimensional connotations [6], including innovation, coordination, greenness, openness, sharing, and other characteristics [7]. However, there have been few studies at the provincial level in China. In addition, the construction of indicators from multiple dimensions and the performance of quantitative research on tourism in this way are also rare.
In 2017, in the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, “urban–rural integration” was proposed. Urban–rural integration refers to the integration relationship between cities and villages, which is a social and economic concept with the goal of achieving common prosperity. Over the next five years, the Chinese government issued a series of policies to promote it [8]. Building a sustainable relationship between urban and rural areas is helpful for the construction and protection of natural landscapes, intangible cultural heritage, the ecological environment, and so on. There is concern in China regarding the social impact of urban–rural integration, especially in the field of tourism. There has been little research on this issue. Few studies have explored the relationship between and influence mechanism underlying urban–rural integration and the high-quality development of the tourism economy, although this is now becoming a topic of interest in academic circles [9].

2. Urban–Rural Integration

Engels first put forward the concept of “urban–rural integration” in the Principles of Communism [10]. Western developed countries began the beneficial practice of urban– rural-integration development in the mid-20th century and experienced specific developments, such as the “garden city”, production–city integration, and urban–rural-market integration [11]. A concept emerged in which cities and townships cannot be completely separated, that they are equally important, and that they should be organically combined [12]. Under the influence of China’s socialist economic development and policy, China has opened up a unique road of urban–rural integration. The relationship between urban and rural areas in China was further emphasized from the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China [13]. This reflects the continuous succession of China’s urban and rural development strategies and the deepening of the understanding of urban–rural relations. Urban–rural integration promotes the realization of Chinese modernization in various specific fields [14]. Urban–rural integration has caused the transformation of the rural human capital structure, from focusing on quantity to valuing quality, efficiency, and ability enhancement [15]. Urban–rural integration is a comprehensive process of reshaping the spatial system and functional value of the urban–rural regional system, which is helpful for optimizing and adjusting the relationship between urban and rural people and land [16]. Urban–rural integration has expanded the multiple -functions of agriculture and made rural areas more livable and suitable for industry, avoiding the problems of agricultural withering, rural decline, and poverty among farmers faced by some countries in the process of urbanization [18][17]. This is conducive to the construction of “smart villages” and the realization of the strategy of “farm to fork” [19][18]. Urban–rural integration realizes the sustainable development of culture and ecological environment in suburban areas and traditional ancient villages [20][19], supports the participation of the whole people, and protects intangible forms of cultural heritage, such as urban and rural cultural relics and historical and cultural cities [21][20].Urban–rural integration promotes the inheritance and innovation of traditional rural cultural resources [22][21], releasing the development impetus of natural resources in urban areas [23][22]. Finally, in the cultural context of urban–rural integration, “surreal” rural space is reproduced with daily and entertaining content bias and “de-subjectivization” [24][23]. Network platforms and short videos can transform rural customs into tangible cultural assets [25][24].

3. Residents’ Incomes

In 2013, the National Bureau of Statistics of China carried out a reform of urban and rural household surveys to include income indicators [26][25]. This showed that there are four sources of resident income: workers’ receipt of remuneration, operating surpluses, net income from property, and net income from current transfer [27][26]. Stimulating domestic demand and promoting consumption are important research directions related to residents’ incomes. For example, the demand for service products is flexible, so an increase in residents’ incomes will accelerate the demand for service products [28][27]. The income level of residents is one of the main factors affecting the growth of the tourism economy. There is a close relationship between resident income and tourism consumption [29][28]. An income-consumption curve has shown the relationship between changes in income and changes in the demand for goods and services [30][29]. There are still some shortcomings in the study of resident income: there has been little concern regarding the driving factors that improve residents’ income levels, and few cross-disciplinary studies.

4. Technical Innovation

The theory of technological innovation was first put forward in Joseph A. Schumpeter’s theory of economic development. However, the definition of the concept of “technological innovation” in academic circles remains inconclusive [31][30]. According to the definitions of the knowledge-production function, human capital function, and technological progress dynamics provided by Romer [32][31] and Lucas [33][32], technological innovation is defined as the increase in the number of intermediate products. Technological innovation is also defined as original innovation, subversive technological innovation, key core technological innovation, and key common technological innovation [34][33]. Technological innovation is having an increasing impact on national economic growth and industrial upgrading. The influence of technological innovation on the tourism economy has also begun to attract academic attention. Some researchers believe that the relationship between technological innovation and the tourism economy is mutually beneficial and synergistic, and there are examples of innovation in providing tourism products and services, environmental protection, and human-resource development [35][34]. Technological innovation empowers all aspects of tourism-product production and improves the total factor productivity of tourism [36][35]. Some scholars have also considered the perspectives of tourism specialization [37][36], inbound tourism [38][37], and the interaction between tourism and technological innovation [39][38]. In general, the research on technological innovation and the tourism economy has mainly focused on tourism-industry innovation, putting forward suggestions for product, service, and efficiency optimization. However, the influence mechanism of technological innovation on the high-quality development of the tourism economy remains to be elucidated.

5. High-Quality Development of the Tourism Economy

The high-quality development of the tourism economy is necessary to maintain the sustainable development of tourism. Attention should be paid to the local economy [40][39], historical environment [41][40], landscape culture, historical sites [41][40], opening to the outside world [42][41], the potential for degrowth [43][42], and ecosystem services [44][43]. In 2021, the Chinese government decided that specific efforts should be made to achieve the high-quality development of tourism. According to the new economic growth theory [45][44], the high-quality development of the tourism economy will be a comprehensive process of improving the development efficiency of the tourism industry, enhancing the quality of tourism products, improving the ability of tourism to open up, and improving tourism’s ecological environment, with the support of the institutional environment and factor endowment [3]. The research on the high-quality development of the tourism economy has mainly been carried out from three perspectives: the urban–rural relationship, residents’ income, and technological innovation. Some scholars have discussed the relationship between urbanization [46][45], urban and rural planning [47][46], rural–urban integration [48][47], urban–rural integration development [49][48], and the development of the regional rural tourism economy. Some scholars have also found that the increase in urban residents’ income promotes an increase in the domestic travel rate [50][49]. Technological innovation is important to improve the public service system in tourist areas and to improve the quality of tourism services [51][50].

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