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Explora: Environment

and Resource

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Tourism resources and development in Xinjiang,

China

Liping Li 1 , Kun Yu 1 , Qiang Chen 1 , Fangmiao Chen 1 , Yanhui Zhang 2,3 ,
Zhenglei Xie 4 , Siyuan He 5 , and Yaomin Zheng *
2,3
1 Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
2 Department of Organizational Management, Business School, Beijing Technology and Business
University, Beijing, China
3 Institute of Cultural and Tourism Development, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing,
China
4 Department of Marine Resource and Environment, College of Marine Science and Engineering,
Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
5 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing, China

Abstract
We collected data from approximately 500 tourism destinations and revenues of
*Corresponding author: Xinjiang region, China, to assess tourism resources and improve tourism industry
Yaomin Zheng development. We analyzed the characteristics, geographical distributions,
(zhengym@btbu.edu.cn) and environmental conditions of these tourism destinations, summarized
Citation: Li L, Yu K, Chen changes in regional tourism revenue over the past 34 years, and proposed
Q, et al. Tourism resources strategic suggestions for the region’s tourism development. Historical sites
and development in Xinjiang, and architectures were found to be dominant, followed by natural scenic sites,
China. Explora Environ Resour.
2025;2(2):025060010. with major hotspots located in the Altay Mountains, Urumqi-Turpan-Hami line,
doi: 10.36922/EER025060010 Ili region, and Aksu-Kashgar-Hotan line. A total of 65% of tourism destinations
Received: February 5, 2025 are located mainly in low altitudes (<1,500 m), with only 20% located in high
altitudes (>2,000 m). They correlate spatially with rivers and roads, often in
1st revised: March 19, 2025
areas with high heatwave index values. Although tourism revenues have grown
2nd revised: March 25, 2025 rapidly in the past decades, with 1998, 2010, and 2015 as breakpoint years,
Accepted: March 26, 2025 Xinjiang’s tourism volume remains relatively low compared to China’s, especially
in international tourism. In 2015, Xinjiang’s total tourism revenue made up 2.9%
Published online: April 16, 2025
of China’s total, with international tourism accounting for just 0.5%. Based on the
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s). analysis, there is significant potential for tourism development in the Xinjiang
This is an Open-Access article region. Hence, we suggest developing mountainous forest tourism based on
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution forest parks in middle and high-altitude areas with relatively lower heatwave
License, permitting distribution, index values, targeting the European market, expanding cultural tourism based
and reproduction in any medium, on diverse ethnic groups, and creating “Silk Road” tourism routes with other
provided the original work is
properly cited. western Chinese provinces.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with Keywords: Tourism resources; Heatwave index; Tourism revenues; Cultural tourism;
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional Xinjiang; China
affiliations.

Volume 2 Issue 2 (2025) 1 doi: 10.36922/EER025060010