On the Geographical Division of Tourism in China

China's tourism zoning is in the exploratory stage, and some scholars advocate that the whole country should be divided into three regional levels:

① Tourist areas (or regions) are the first-level tourist regional organizations that span provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. Based on the principle of similar resource characteristics and consistent macro-geographical basis, the whole country is planned as nine tourist areas;

② Tourism provinces (or sub-regions) are mostly divided according to the principle of administrative integrity;

③ Tourist areas (or communities) are generally divided according to the similarity of regional types of tourist resources. The internal similarity and regional differences of tourist areas are relative, and the zoning units at all levels have both the consistency of internal characteristics and certain differences. The higher the partition level, the smaller the similarity and the greater the difference. The tourist area includes a regional complex composed of several tourist attractions and tourist reception facilities with the same characteristics, including not only tourism resources, but also various infrastructures indispensable for tourists to achieve their tourism goals.

Tourist areas are regional, hierarchical, systematic and optimized.