Abstract: There are abundant hot spring resources in Gansu and Qinghai Province,China,but most resources have not yet been exploited. Tourism resource evaluation is the precondition for effective protection and rational exploitation of tourism resources. It is therefore of utmost importance to investigate the development order of hot spring tourism resources over this area. The paper first systematically analyzed the characteristics of hot springs in Gansu and Qinghai. And by using the methods of AHP,the paper then developed an evaluation index system on the exploiting order of regional hot spring tourism resources consisting of 20 indices from two aspects—resource condition of hot spring and comprehensive development conditions. Resource condition of hot spring is the intrinsic factor,including visit value,medical and health care value and environmental quality,while comprehensive development conditions is the extrinsic driving force that influences the hot spring tourism development, including social and economic conditions,tourist market,geographic conditions and infrastructure conditions. Meanwhile,the qualitative and quantitative scoring criteria of evaluating factors were discussed for the first time. Taking 80 hot springs as samples,the paper further assessed different types of exploiting order of hot spring tourism resources in Gansu and Qinghai based on the proposed evaluation index system. Results indicated that hot springs in Qinghai and Gansu have high spatial heterogeneity,showing more hot spots in Qinghai than those in Gansu. The assessment results showed the 80 hot springs could be classified into three categories: type of given priority to development which include 8 hot springs,type of given suboptimal priority to development which include 21 hot springs and type of not fitting for development which include 51 hot springsout of various restrictions. Hot springs given priority to development are mainly scattered in Tianshui,Pingliang,Wuwei,Tongwei in Gansu and Xining,Hainan,Haidong in Qinghai. Hot springs given suboptimal priority to development are mostly scattered in Lanzhou,Qingyang in Gansu and Haibei,Huangnan in Qinghai. Hot springs not fitting for development are mainly scattered in Gannan,Longnan,Zhangye,Jiuquan in Gansu and Haixi,Yushu in Qinghai. Subsequently, strategies for developing hot springs tourism resources of different types were discussed in detail. Hot springs given priority to development were believed to have the most comprehensive benefits to be developed, which have advantages such as higher grade in hot springs resources,better social and economic conditions and superior development conditions. Some advices were given on this type such as promoting structure of hot-spring tourism product,improving ecological environment,developing jointly with nearby tourist attractions,developing various marketing patterns,adopting the policy of placing equal stress on development and protection to guarantee the sustainable utilization of hot spring resources. Hot spring given suboptimal priority to development have less resource value and comprehensive development conditions,and their main task is to enhance traffic infrastructure, pay more attention to rational adjustment of the development mode for hot spring resources.

Key words: hot spring tourism destination, analytic hierarchy process(AHP), exploiting order