Spatial pattern and micro-location rules of tourism businesses in historic towns: A case study of Pingyao, China

Sustainable tourism development in historic towns has received widespread attention, but the distribution pattern and layout rules of the tourism businesses in it are not clear. Taking the ancient city of Pingyao in China as an example, this study explores the distribution pattern and verifies influence factors of the tourism businesses by a series of multivariate analyses. A spatial database with 1126 location information of tourism businesses is established based on point of interest (POI) data, including tourism attractions, tourism shopping, tourism catering, tourism entertainment, and tourism accommodation. Spatial distribution characteristics of tourism businesses are analyzed through the methods of standard deviation ellipse and Getis-Ord Gi∗. The influence of street networks and tourism attractions on the distribution of tourism businesses are verified by space syntax method and examined with eWOM data. The result shows that priority location roads attract tourism attractions, tourism shopping, tourism catering, and tourism entertainment, except for tourism accommodation. Tourism attractions successively attract tourism shopping, tourism catering, and tourism entertainment, but without obvious influence on tourism accommodation. The influence characteristics of street networks and tourism attractions on the distribution of tourism businesses are summarized as ‘global’ and ‘local’, ‘select’ and ‘grade’, ‘stable’ and ‘changeable’. Three suggestions on the layout of tourism businesses in historic towns are proposed. The findings have important implications for both destination management and commercial business operation.