The Geographical Space of China's Tourism Websites

A new special space is being constructed from information and user flows based on tourism websites and the links among them. While greater attention has been paid to the economic, technological and user behaviour aspects, tourism websites also deserve to be studied from the perspective of space using geographical methods. This paper is a cybergeographical study of tourism websites. Based upon related studies and theories of cyberspace, the new topic ‘tourism cyberspace’ is introduced. Then, using spatial network analysis methods, the complicated cyberspace of Chinese tourism websites (CTW) is represented through the construction of a network model based upon data collected from the CTW of 31 regions of China. The model is a simplified network displayed as a 31 × 31 matrix. In this network, ‘nodes’, ‘accessibilities’ and ‘strengths’ are calculated and estimated, and the results show significant regional differentiation. Furthermore, positive relationships are indicated between the level of the regional economic, tourism and technological development and the accessibility of the region's nodes. This suggests that there is a strong relationship between tourism cyberspace and traditional geographical space.