Industrial agglomeration model in culture tourism system: Empirical study in mainland China

Spatial integration and industrial clustering have become an important feature of the culture tourism business. When the core elements in both the culture industry and tourism industry are integrated, a model based on system science is constructed that combines the resources and capacity of the two entities to envisage the ways of creating integrated products and services from the two sectors. Guided by the system science, this study proposes a culture tourism system revealing the clustering and hierarchical structure of the industrial elements. The system contains two subsystems: internal system and external system. The agglomeration model of the system includes 26 indices and the PEF methods, which involved the Parallelogram Law, Entropy-weight Method, and Fuzzy Membership Function. Finally, this study deploys an empirical study involving all provincial territories (N=31) in mainland China. It analyzes the variability and degree of balanced development of the system. In addition, through the resultant data this research adds a typology of culture tourism system along with policy recommendations.