Urban Tourism in China

China has witnessed a dramatic development of tourism in urban context in the past thirty years, especially with its success in hosting the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and the Shanghai World Exposition in 2010. Urban areas as tourism destination are receiving increasingly more popularity than traditional destinations such as national parks, natural reserves, and historical relics. Deriving largely from a special issue on "Urban Tourism Development and City Destination Marketing" (Journal of China Tourism Research), Urban Tourism in China presents the readers with a collection of nine independent research reports examining issues such as consumer behaviour in urban destinations, the social impact of tourism, destination image, leisure, regional collaboration, and heritage tourism in ancient towns. The investigations covered urban areas of different scales and diversified nature from major metropolises such as Beijing, and Guangzhou, to ancient towns like Lijiang and Pingyao. Readers who have interests of tourism research, business development, and in-depth understanding of urban life in China may find the book informative and interesting. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of China Tourism Research.

Mimi Li, PhD., is Assistant Professor in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests include tourism planning, destination marketing, consumer behaviour in hospitality and tourism, and China tourism. Bihu (Tiger) Wu, PhD., is Professor and Director of the Centre for Recreation and Tourism Research at Peking University. His research interests include tourism geography, city tourism and resort planning, destination marketing, tourism policy, and tourism education.

1. Introduction: Urban Tourism in China Mimi Li and Bihu Wu 2. Measuring Tourism Spillover Effects among Cities: Improvement of the Gap Model and a Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta Shan Li, Min Xiao, Kun Zhang, Jing Wu, and Zheng Wang 3. Urban Morphology and Tourism Planning: Exploring the City Wall in Pingyao, China Feifan (Philip) Xie and Kai Gu 4. The Impacts of Heritage Tourism on Public Space in Historic Towns: A Case Study of Lijiang Ancient Town Xiao-bo Su and Chun-yuan Huang 5. Leisure in an Urban Environment - A Perspective of University Students Shan Yang, Honggen Xiao, and Chau Yeung Tse 6. A Residential Survey on Urban Tourism Impacts in Harbin Yu Wang, Gang Li, and Xuemei Bai 7. The Social Impacts of Tourism in a Beijing Hutong-A Case of Environmental Change Chris Ryan and Huimin Gu 8. A Study of Inbound Business Tourists' Shopping Behaviour and Influencing Factors - A Case Study of the Canton Fair in Guangzhou Qiuju Luo and Xiangyu Lu 9. Visitor and Resident Images of Qingdao, China as a Tourism Destination Shaojun Ji 10. Developing a Framework for Assessing Visitors' Responses to Chinese Cities Philip L. Pearce, Yongzhi Wu, and Aram Son