The coupling coordination and driving factors of tourism economy and urban ecological resilience: A case study of Shandong Province, China

The strategic coordination of tourism economy and urban ecological resilience (TE-UER) system is essential for advancing sustainable tourism and resilient city building. This paper utilized the coupling coordination degree (CCD) approach, exploratory spatiotemporal data analysis to assess the coordination state and spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of TE-UER. A geodetector was also employed to investigate the affecting factors of the TE-UER coordination relationship. The data were collected from 2011 to 2020, and 17 prefecture-level cities in Shandong Province, China, which are typical and representative of the TE and UER, were selected as case studies. The research found that the CCD of TE-UER in Shandong Province evolved positively, but the spatial differentiation was obvious, presenting the spatial layout of “high in east, low in west”. The HL agglomeration located Jinan was severe and there was no sign of improvement. Besides, the probability of spatiotemporal transition was 22.2% while that of spatiotemporal transition cohesion was 87.6%. Thus, the spatial transfer inertia of CCD of cities was evident. Furthermore, the interrelationships of the factors of the CCD of TE-UER mainly include the interactions of double enhancement and nonlinear enhancement. And factors such as economic growth and foreign investment affect the CCD of TE-UER and there was significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity in these factors. This study incorporated tourism economics and urban ecological resilience into a unified theoretical analysis framework, enriched the research perspectives and contents of tourism economics and urban ecology, and not only provided a theoretical basis for the interactive study of tourism and ecological environment, but also had important practical and guiding significance for the high-quality development of regional tourism and resilient management of urban ecosystems under the background of sustainability.