Abstract:

The LanzhouXinjiang highspeed railway is one of the longest highspeed railway in the world,running through several provinces in northwest China.The spatial evolution of urban tourism traffic accessibility and tourism economic linkages along the LanzhouXinjiang highspeed railway before and after the opening of LanzhouXinjiang highspeed railway is measured by using the inverse distance weighted difference technique of GIS.The role of cities along the railway in the tourism economic linkages network is analyzed by using Ucinet 6.0 software.The results show that the urban tourism traffic accessibility and tourism economic linkages along the railway are both improved.But the increase extent has spatial differences.The improvement extent of the cities on the east side of the railway is greater than that of the cities on the west side of the railway.From the perspective of provinces and regions,the urban tourism traffic accessibility level of the cities with a better tourism economic base has been improved more significantly.In the future,how to realize the coordinated development of regional tourism industry and avoid neglecting the marginal tourist cities will be the focus.The LanzhouXinjiang corridor should give full play to Urumqi and Lanzhou as the core cities.At the same time,Jiuquan as the subcore city should exert itself as an agglomeration and diffusion center.The cities like Jiayuguan,Zhangye and Xining as the important tourist destinations should also act as the transferring and forwarding points to mobilize the tourism development in the marginal cities such as Turpan,Haidong and Kumul in order to build the socalled “tourism+highspeed railway” Silk Road Golden Route in northwestern China.The conclusion can provide theoretical basis and decisionmaking reference for the development of high speed railway tourism in northwest China.

Key words: Lanzhou Xinjiang High speed Railway, highspeed railway tourism, accessibility, tourism economic linkage, social network analysis