J.Mt.Sci.(2017) 14(3): 595-608 e-mail: jms@imde.ac.cn http://jms.imde.ac.

cn
DOI: 10.1007/s11629-015-3747-8

Tourism sectorization opportunity spectrum model and

space partition of tourism urbanization area: a case of the
Mayangxi ecotourism area, Fujian province, China

TAO Hui1,2,3 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1879-0154;e-mail: cgcbleach@163.com

LIU Jia-ming1,3* http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4654-5420; e-mail: liujm@igsnrr.ac.cn

DENG Yu1 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7106-6259; e-mail: dengy@igsnrr.ac.cn

DU Ao3 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3010-2625; e-mail:da_812@163.com

* Corresponding author
1 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100101, China
2 Institute of economics and management, Hubei University for Nationalities, EnShi 445000, China
3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Citation: Tao H, Liu JM, Deng Y, et al. (2017) Tourism sectorization opportunity spectrum model and space partition of
tourism urbanization area: a case of the Mayangxi ecotourism area, Fujian province, China. Journal of Mountain Science
14(3). DOI: 10.1007/s11629-015-3747-8

© Science Press and Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, CAS and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017

Abstract: Nowadays, tourism has become an
increasingly significant driving force of modern
urbanization in China. However, it has caused
varieties of problems, such as resource unreasonable
utilization, society unfair play, and environment
pollution, etc. Thus, the establishment of an efficient
and sustainable space partition model for tourism
urbanization, from the geographical perspective, is
highly necessary and urgent. Herein, a new evaluation
model of tourist town space, referred to as Tourism
Sectorization Opportunity Spectrum (TSOS), is
established on the relationships between production-
living-ecology spaces. TSOS is a kind of quantitative
evaluation model involving such factors as urban
living area, ecological conservation area and the
tourism industry. Furthermore, the analysis of
quantitative production-living-ecology spatial overlap
has been utilized for space division in a tourism
urbanization area. This paper, using both the TSOS
model and GIS technology, analyzes the spatial
restructure of the Mayangxi ecotourism area. The
result demonstrates that tourism industrial space
takes the Shanchong Village as a core which shows a
pattern of local regional agglomeration and a fuzzy
edge extending along the entire Mayangxi River. The
urban living area should be consolidated in the Shili
village with the supporting facilities and living space
for tourism. In addition, Tianzhu Mountain forest
park should be the key environmental protection area.
The case study on the Mayangxi ecotourism area
verifies that the TSOS model has strong operability.
Therefore, TSOS model provides a scientific
foundation for the space reconstruction of new
urbanization area, and an effective tool for optimizing
the space partition of a tourism urbanization area.
Keywords: Tourism urbanization; Sectorization;
Space reconstruction; Tourism sectorization
Opportunity spectrum; Mayangxi ecotourism area
Introduction

Received:13 October 2015 With the rapid urbanization and income

Revised: 26 April 2016
Accepted:27 June 2016 growth, tourism has become a popular economic

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J.Mt.Sci.(2017) 14(3): 595-608
and leisure activity for Chinese customers. Tourism
and its related industries are not only having an
increasing impact on economic growth and social
development, but also playing an essential role in
the urbanization of China. Mullins initially
proposed the idea of “Tourism Urbanization” and
conducted two case studies in Australia (Mullines
1991). As the rapid development of scenic areas and
supporting facilities have resulted in a series of
environmental problems at the end of the 20th
century, Chinese scholars have to research tourism
urbanization connotation, characters, dynamic
mechanisms, and development patterns of special
regions (Qian et al. 2012; Lu and Ge 2006). As
modern urbanization continues, the new growing
point for China’s tourism will soon be transferred
to small tourist towns in the future. In fact, in the
past three decades, these towns have been serving
as the important connecting nodes between cities
and villages (Li et al. 2014).
Nowadays, tourism has become an
increasingly significant driving force for
urbanization in China, especially for those areas
that possess abundant tourism resources. Tourism
urbanization, widespread in real practice, has been
strongly supported by national policies.
Nevertheless, along with tourism urbanization, the
lack of reasonable space partition control has
caused severe problems, such as the excess of
tourism real estate, unreasonable tourism activity
spatial arrangements, general damage to the
countryside, and the destruction of ecological
balance. Thus, it has become increasingly crucial to
research means (Li et al. 2012) to meet diversified
development needs and to provide users with high-
quality leisure space in order to create spatial order,
environmental friendliness and fair allocation of
public service resources in modern urbanization.
Efforts should be made to allow small towns to
enjoy the welfare of the developing industry, to
protect the ecological environment of rural areas,
and to maintain the sensitivity and integrity of the
environment with the purpose of ensuring the
sustainable utilization of environmental resources
(Yoon and Uysal 2005). Towns close to the
mountain areas in China, usually holding nice
natural views, have gradually become attractive
tourism destinations. Nevertheless, those
mountain tourism places usually have a high level
of natural resource vulnerability and a low level of
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environmental carrying capacity. As a consequence,
the development of mountain tourism areas is
currently facing a huge challenge.
Progress have been made in a lot of relevant
fields, such as the relationship between space and
urban population (Wang et al. 2010), urbanization
and social space distribution (Dai et al. 2010),
special industry power (Hong et al. 2005) and the
reconstruction of regional internal space (Gary et al.
2011). Economy and ecology are two major factors
of functional areas division. The ecological
components include ecological importance,
ecological sensitivity, ecological barriers,
environmental capacity, disaster vulnerability and
so on. The economic factors mainly include the
economic development level and the development
potential. Meanwhile, some researches have
attempted to build a partitioning index system
through the evaluation of resources and the
environment carrying capacity, development
density as well as development potential. Some
researches on space partitions have been
conducted by evaluating comprehensive economic
regionalization, controlling the development of
regionalization and developing potential
regionalization. Critical studies, including the state
space method (Deng et al. 2004), three-
dimensional magic map (Wollmuth et al. 1985),
spatial overlay analysis (Sarkar et al. 2008) and
statistical syntheses (Chen et al. 2015), have also
been conducted in the area of space partition
technology and have become the core technical
guidance for the current urban space management.
Domestic researches are mainly focused on large-
scale tourism space in three main aspects —
regions, cities and attractions (Xie et al. 2008).The
adopted research methods are mainly the space
structure measurement index(closeness, adjacency,
geographic concentration and fractal index),
statistics and social networks (Weng et al. 2007;
Sun et al. 2014; Wei et al. 2011).
From the perspective of spatial environment,
Clark and Stankey introduced the Recreation
Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) theory in the 1970s
(Driver 1987). The principal theory of ROS is the
design of different recreational activities in
different areas to reduce the pressure of resources
and ensure ecotourism experience quality. The
ROS theory has been accepted worldwide (Butler
1991; Xiao et al. 2011). In China, the ROS theory is

mainly applied in small-scale space control (Wang
et al. 2015), such as forest parks (Han et al. 2001),
water tourism resource protection (Liu 2008),
ecological tourist area management (Wall and
Sinnott 2008) and visitor experience value
evaluation (Dzhambov and Dimitrova 2014).
Furthermore, varieties of disciplines have been
combined to develop ROS with new theories of
practical applications. For instance, LAC (Wu
2010), VERP (Cerveny 2011) and TOS (Martín
2010) have become important support structures
for the judgment of small-scale tourism spaces.
The existing researches about modern
urbanization have the following deficits. (1)
Traditional research concentrates more on the
independent units of cities or countries and ignores
the new types of rural-urban interpenetration
settlement spaces, usually transformed by the
advantages of location, resource and environment.
This paper specially discusses these new types of
tourist town settlement spaces. Aiming to integrate
urban and rural spatial planning as a whole, this
paper puts forward a newly concentrated system of
administrative jurisdiction that divides the whole
space of some rural regions nearby city, with
relatively superior tourism elements, into the
development zone, the ecology zone, and the
tourism zone. The new zoning system, relying on
the diagnoses of the original characteristics of land
use, helps to build an urban and rural interaction
space that adopts tourism as the leading industry.
The new zoning system helps to combine the
leisure economy with part-time farming, make the
production space more intensive and efficient,
make the living space more livable, and make the
ecological space more harmonious. (2) From a
microcosmic perspective, studies on the rational
distribution of tourist town space, especially on the
spatial evaluation factors of tourism urbanization,
including attractions, supporting services and
ecology, are relatively weak. It is commonly seen in
studies that one factor is focused on while the
others are ignored. In practice, mixed land uses,
disordered spatial distribution, homogenized
tourism activities, project-changed property,
damaged ecological environments and reduced
environmental quality all may appear due to the
lack of scientific living and ecology space
partitioning index system as a support. It is
important to appropriately understand the
J.Mt.Sci.(2017) 14(3): 595-608
coordination rule of the new tourism urbanization
space in production, living and ecology systems.
The scientific and reasonable space partitions and
controls will improve economic, social and
ecological coordination, stability and sustainable
development in new tourist towns.
Taking the Mayangxi ecotourism area as an
example, the study combines the ROS theory with
GIS space technology initially and builds up the
tourist-town sectorization opportunities spectrum
(TSOS) to assess the spatial suitability of tourism
industries, urban life and ecological conservation
in the process of urbanization. In addition, TSOS
provides the basis for decision-making during
spatial division and management. Last but not least,
space partition by TSOS Model shows that the
leisure activities are increasing, new residential
areas are consolidating in central towns to match
the tourism industry, traditional rural landscapes
are being preserved, resource waste and
environment pollution are being controlled, and
new space patterns of coordinated development
between the environment and the tourism industry
are being built.
1 TSOS Model Construction
1.1 Tourism PLE spaces
PLE stands for production-living-ecology.
With the characteristics and mutual relations of
PLE space being clarified, a complete and
quantifiable index system that can illuminate
spatial development order has been created for
tourism spatial analysis. Utilizing the suitability of
PLE space development as the gist, an evaluation
index system is built with the GIS spatial analysis
technology to re-estimate the functional status of
spatial consolidation in the tourism urbanization
process as a regional safeguard for a harmonious
relationship between the environment and a stable
ecological system. The PLE spaces are relatively
independent in territorial jurisdictions yet interact
with each other functionally (Ai et al. 2015) (see
Figure 1). First of all, there is an interactive
coercive relationship between the urban living
spaces and ecology spaces, and these spaces are
both spatially exclusive (Wang et al. 2011).
Nevertheless, the tourism production space
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Figure 1 The PLE (Production-Living-Ecology) space division mechanism of the TSOS model.
embodies a duality: the tourism space has a lightly
coercive relationship with the ecological space,
whereas tourism service areas have a visitor encounters can provide visitors with an
complementary fusion relationship with the urban
space. Secondly, commercial entertainment
activities are an important part of the tourism
industry, and the peripheral areas in tourist sites
play an important role in the function of living
space services, which results in a significant
overlap and coordination between the industry and
living space. Thirdly, recreational activities mostly
rely on the natural environment. Ecotourism can
be developed in the ecological conservation areas,
while the appropriate development of tourism
resources can promote the beautification of the
environment. Therefore, production space and
ecology space show a permeating and
complementary interaction. Fourthly, the
relationship between the living and ecology spaces
is the dynamic antagonism and coupling in
different phases owing to the developing
modernization and high level of human
disturbance. The scientific reconstruction of PLE
spaces can not only maximize the overall profit
spatial exploitation but also provide tourists with
differentiated opportunities of recreation
experience (Van and Taylor 1993). For example,
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undeveloped areas with minimal management
constraints, facility provisions and low levels of
opportunity to experience solitude and have close
contact with the nature. Tourists who want comfort
and amenities can visit urban areas or nearby
towns to enjoy transportation services, comfortable
facilities and convenient services (Abildttrup 2013)
(Table 1).
1.2 TSOS model
TSOS is short for the tourist-town
sectorization opportunity spectrum. The TSOS
model aims to define partition space management
and reconstruction order in the production-living-
ecology (PLE) spaces. The TSOS building is the
process of optimizing adjustment and fundamental
transformation in PLE spaces during the course of
rapid tourism urbanization and is also a
comprehensive method of spatial structure
optimization and overall development promotion
between the urban and rural areas (Wang et al.
2012). In line with the principle of combining
comprehensive analyses and dominant factors and
reflecting the spatial difference and realistic
maneuverability, the TSOS model creates an
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Table 1 The characteristics of different spaces

Characteristics Urban living
Low natural rate, lots of
artificial buildings, artificial
Natural degree
vegetation that is
(Development and
maintained, main roads,
construction)
ideal recreation facilities,
many foreign residents
Good traffic locations, bus
Traffic stations, transportation
center
Tourists concentrated in the
area, noisy, capable of team
Tourist density
reception, high degree of
resident fusion
Facilities High-level facilities and
development services with large parking
strength lots and public services
Recreation Ecology conservation
Natural environment partially,
moderate artificial transformation, lots Mainly natural
of artificial vegetation that is environment, not obvious
maintained, mainly rural settlements, artificial reconstruction,
large historical and cultural natural vegetation and
environment, less significant roads, roads, few paved roads
mainly naturally paved roads or paths
Far from main roads,
Medium or long distance to main roads, remote, no public
comparatively easy access by bus or car transportation, 1.5 hours
or more by car
Fewer tourists, quiet and
Medium tourist density, medium to
private, low level of
high level of tourist encounters, little
tourist encounters, no
team reception
team reception
Medium to high level of facilities and
Few facilities or services
services

evaluation system with four levels, namely, the
target layer (three indexes), criterion layer (9
indexes), sub-criterion layer (24 indexes) and
factor layer (96 indexes), from the three aspects of
urban living, recreational production and
ecological conservation space.
(1) Space suitability for urban living
To make spatial decisions for new tourist
towns, the primary requirement is to meet the land
needs for urban development. Based on the
research and collection of various natural
environment conditions and construction
conditions, following the requirement of the design
and construction, as well as the feasibility and
efficiency in engineering land preparation, a
comprehensive evaluation of the construction
condition is made to provide a scientific basis to
determine the development degree and select the
urban living space functions (Qian et al. 2013).
Combining the "Standard for Urban and Rural
Land Evaluation(CJJ132-2009) (MOHURD
2009)", the regional situation and data availability,
four criteria — geographic conditions, engineering
geology, hydrology, geology and utilization status
— are selected for the suitability evaluation of
tourist town construction, and the factor weights
are determined with the usage of the AHP
(analytical hierarchy process) (Table 2).
(2)Space suitability for ecological conservation
areas
The ecological environment, as the basis for
the development of new tourist towns, is a key
element to its sustainable development. It is also
the material carrier that meets the demand of the
new “mountains, rivers and nostalgia” urbanization.
Therefore, the evaluation on the suitability of
ecological conservation has become extremely
important. According to the Technical Guidelines
for Regional Environmental Impact Assessment
(HJ/T131-2003) (SEPA 2003) issued by the
Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2002, and
the actual situation in specific regions, the
suitability evaluation index system of urban space
development should be assessed from two aspects
— ecological value and interference strength —
with the weights determined by an AHP method
(Table 3).
There are three main types of factor
quantification of the TSOS index system, including
quantitative factor standardization, qualitative
factor quantization and functional factors
quantization (Yang et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2007).
Quantitative factor standardization mainly
considers the frequency distribution state of the
factor value and usually utilizes the percentage
precedence method, linear interpolation method
and membership function value method;
qualitative factor indexes are usually fuzzy, and
their quantification is performed through the
expert scoring method and set value statistics
method; functional factor indexes have spatial
gradient change effects as accessibility and water
level effects, and they are suitable for the
calculation of time, distance and cost. After
quantification, all the factors are transformed into
grid data (30m×30 m grid sizes), and the town

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Table 2 The evaluation index system of tourist town land development

Criterion layer and Sub-criterion layer and
Target layer Factor layer
weight weight
Topography morphology
Basic form: simple / complex / broken
(0.0625)
Landform Topographic relief: <10% / 10%-20% /
Slope(0.15)
(0.25) 20%-30% / >30%
Sunlight: south / southeast / southwest /
Aspect(0.0375)
northwest / east / west / north / northeast
Foundation bearing <100kpa / 100kpa-180kpa / 180-250kpa
capacity(0.07) / >250kpa
Engineering geology Rock and soil type Rock or gravel / hard plastic clay / sandy soil /
Urban (0.35) (0.0875) soft soil
construction Seismic fortification Earthquake resistant capability(degree):
suitability intensity (0.0875) <VI/VII–VIII/IX / > IX
index No flood inundation / inundation depth or site
Flood (0.14) elevation below the fortification tide level<1.0 m /
Hydrogeology
1.0 m-1.5 m / >1.5m
(0.2)
Pollution, wind direction Pollution degree and urban health: zero / low /
(0.06) relatively high / high
Residential, industrial, transportation /wild grass,
Land use(0.1) reed, beach, other types / cultivated, garden, river,
Utilization status
water conservation facilities / forest, lake
(0.2)
Distance from the main road: <3 km / 3-5 km / 5-
Traffic location(0.1)
10 km / >10km
Notes: Evaluation grade refers to national standard and is divided into 5 levels: high suitability, relatively high
suitability, moderate suitability, low suitability, and not suitable. The total first weight value of W' is 1.00.
Table 3 The evaluation index system of the ecological conservation space
Criterion layer
Target layer Sub-criterion layer and weight Factor layer
and weight
Vegetation coverage area: >80% / 50%-80% /
Vegetation coverage rate(0.20)
20%-50% / <20%
Ecological γ diversity of plants and animals*: >2.0 / 1.0-2.0 /
Bio-diversity(0.25)
value (0.60) 0.5-1.0 / 0-0.5
Surface water protection
Ecological <100 m / 100-300 m / 300-600 m / >600m
scope(0.15)
suitability
Population disturbance >100 per/km2 / 100-60 per/km2 / 60-20 per/km2
index
intensity(0.20) / <20 per/km2
Disturbance Industrial disturbance
>60% / 60%-40% / 40%-20% / <20%
intensity (0.40) intensity(0.10)
Engineering disturbance
3-4km/ 2-3km/ 1-2km/ 0-1km
intensity(0.10)
Notes: The higher the ecological suitability is, the more suitable for ecological conservation control will be. *γ
diversity, namely in the unit area of a series of habitat, species diversity, show diverse ecological statuses and gene
mutation in biological communities.

development suitability in each grid cell is
calculated utilizing the weighted average method.
The relative formula is shown as follows:
=∑ × (1)
Fi is the final development suitability score for
area I; the higher the score is, the more suitable the
area is for this type of development. wj refers to the
relative weight of factor j for the target layer. eij is
the standard score of the factor j. Also, m is the
total number of factors.
The urban and ecological development
suitability of every grid unit is calculated by
Formula 1. To make the overlay analysis easier, the
final development suitability is divided into five
categories utilizing the Natural Breaks method.
(3) Space suitability evaluation of the tourism
industry
Tourism urbanization emphasizes that the
tourism industry is a trigger and dominant factor
for urban regeneration and development (Huang et
al. 2000). Therefore, it is extremely significant to

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clarify the development potential of tourism and with the ecological space yet can complement each
estimate its production space. Classification, other. Meanwhile, the tourism production space is
investigation and evaluation of tourism resources highly dependent on the tourism resources of the
(GB/T18972-2003) (AQSIQ 2003) proposes three scenic area. To achieve the optimal matching of the
criterion indexes — the value of resources, the PLE space and to maximize the suitable degree of
influence of resources and added value — which space targets, the regional grid cells were first
establish the evaluation system to assess the divided into urban space and ecological space. The
development potential of urban tourism and tourism production space was designated
determine the index weights utilizing the AHP. The according to the development suitability of the
details are shown in Table 4. scenic resources and urban space. The optimal
The development and punctual or linear allocation of the urban space and ecological space
distribution characteristics of most types of method in Formula 2 is as below:
tourism have a strong distance decay effect. = max ∑ +∑ (2)
Therefore, the evaluation is different from urban or
ecological suitability evaluations. The evaluation A reflects the urban space and ecological space
results of regional tourism suitability are acquired in the entire region, achieving optimal allocation;
from three steps: field investigation to determine Fi (U) refers to the urban development suitability of
the tourism monomer resource level, the area i; Fi(E) reflects the ecological conservation
determination of the radiation distance of the suitability of area i; n is the number of grid units
tourism monomer at different levels and the usage for urban development; N means the total grid unit
of Buffer Wizard tools to determine the influence number in the region.
scope. Combined with the actual situation of the In the actual analysis, if Fi(U)=Fi(E), the space
study area, the radiation distance of the tourism can thus be designated as an elastic area, and the
monomer in 1-5 categories is 100, 200, 300, 500 land use can be based on the specific regional
and 1000m, respectively. conditions. Ecological space is the developmental
(4) Quantitative PLE spatial overlap analysis foundation of tourism. Thus, it is identified as
Based on the above analysis, the tourism ecological land, and urban and ecological space can
production space and urban living space conflict be determined according to the above discussion.
Table 4 The evaluation index system of tourism development space
Criterion layer Sub-criterion layer and
Target layer Factor layer
and weight weight
Recreation use value (0.28) Ornamental value, recreation value, use value
Historical, cultural, scientific Historical value, cultural value, scientific value,
and artistic value (0.24) artistic value
Resource value Rare and unique degree
Rare species, landscape diversity
(0.8) (0.14)
Size, abundance and Monomer size, volume, structure, density;
Tourism probability (0.09) tourism period
development Integrity (0.05) Morphology and structure integrity
suitability index Tourism landscape types, relative density,
Popularity and influences
Resource distance, spatial distribution; linear, circular or
(0.07)
influence horseshoe-shaped tour routes
(0.15) Appropriate travel time Social stability, friendliness, residential culture
period or area (0.03) fusion degree, social economic fluctuation
Added value Environmental protection Environmental pollution and potential safety
(0.05) and security (0.05) hazard factors(negative index)
Notes: Different types of tourism towns result in different recreation products. On the basis of "Classification,
investigation and evaluation of tourism resources(GB/T18972-2003)", index scores were adjusted according to their
actual situation. For example, vacation tourism towns can be added to the comfort and safety evaluation index (Mao
et al. 2014). According to the monomer scores in a certain region, the resources value can be divided into 5 categories.
The higher of the grade is, the larger the influence scope or the higher the radiation potential will be; the lower grade
#
resources will have smaller spatial influences. Social economic fluctuation mainly refers to price fluctuations,
unemployment, traffic accidents and noise intensity as influenced by multiple factors related to the level of the quality
of life of local residents.

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Due to the complementary fusion relationship
between the service surrounding tourism sites and
urban space, the land for the tourist service is
estimated through the overlap between the tourism
buffer area and urban land. After the above
analysis is conducted, the PLE space pattern of
tourist towns and the PLE space function division
model for new tourist towns are completed.
2 Case Studies
2.1 Study area
This study chooses a typical area, the Mayanxi
mountain ecotourism area, as a case to apply the
TSOS model into the space partition of mountain
tourism town. The Mayangxi ecotourism area,
located in the hinterland of the Xiamen-
Zhangzhou-Quanzhou "Golden Triangle" (with a
relatively high economic development level) in
southern Fujian, was approved by the government
of Zhangzhou city in Oct 2004. The 138 km2 area
with a population of 11,000 consists of four
administrative villages — Shili, Wangting, Houfang,
Shanchong and a community under jurisdiction,
Tiancheng. The average elevation is approximately
450 m, the highest elevation is 965.8m and the
minimum is 16.7m. The complex geographic
landform includes low hills, mountains, valleys,
cliffs, platforms and terraces. The geological
structure is part of the Fujian and Zhejiang active
zone with a single stratum and complex lithology,
mainly consisting of Mesozoic Jurassic volcanic
rock and Yanshan-period volcanic rock. In fact,
there was a strong fracturing movement in the
geological history and strong activity of the
Neocathaysian tectonic system. There are various
land types in the Mayangxi ecotourism area, and
over 76% of all the lands are mountains, forming a
typical seaside mountainous tourist area. The main
river — the Mayangxi River, with a length of
30.4km and a channel drop of 222m — is suitable
for rafting and canoeing. Marsh lands, villages and
ecological orchards are distributed along both sides
of the river, forming breathe-taking scenery(see
Figure 2).
Before 2004, the urbanization speed of
tourism area was slow, and the residents were
mainly involved in agriculture. The low levels of
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Figure 2 The Land use of the Mayangxi Ecotourism
Area, Fujian Province, China.
industrialization and urbanization, the poor
infrastructure, the small economy and low income
levels led to the rural economic structure to be
dominated by farming. After the establishment of
the independent tourism area, with the advantages
of tourism resources and location, 17 tourism (or
estate) projects have been developed in this area,
such as the Mayangxi Drifting, the Fanhua Eco-
Expo Park, and the Tianzhu Mountain National
Forest Park, with a total investment of over 1
billion yuan. Several tourism brands have been
initially formed, drawing 1 million people annually
with a total tourism income of nearly 200 million
yuan. Furthermore, more local residents have
participated in the industry. Although the
Mayangxi ecotourism area has already been on the
tourism urbanization track, and the disordered
spatial expansion and ecological damage have
appeared, Mayangxi is still in desperate need of
spatial reconstruction to further clarify the spatial
range of ecological protection, economic
development and recreational activity.
Fujian’s Mayangxi is selected as the research
object mainly for the following reasons: (1) Many
studies have focused on the traditional towns. The
decision-making of location and spatial structure of
the new types of tourist towns arisen in recent
 J.Mt.Sci.(2017) 14(3): 595-608

years have not been discussed yet. (2) Since the 2.3 Results
village in Mayangxi was transformed into a tourist
area in 2004, the public service system has not yet The habitat suitability evaluation index of the
been established; the tourism support services are TSOS model determines the decisive factor of
only in their early stages, and the agglomeration production space that designates tourist attractions
industry center has not yet been formed in a large and living space as well as provides urban services
number of tourism real estate cluster communities. and ecology space to protect the ecological
What our research needs to resolve is the environment. Combining this model with the GIS
optimization and selection problem of the spatial technology, this paper calculated the weight of each
organization of regional tourism services in new type of the spatial factors and then produced the
tourist towns. (3) Mayangxi’s tourist real estate, as definite types of differentiated function spaces with
part of the distinctive resort town, is growing as a the overlapping results. For the types that are not
result of the induction of urban leisure groups and easy to determine, the results should be further
is one of the significant directions that represent refined by conducting peer reviews on the actual
the China's tourism product changes in the future, condition of the target area, regional spatial
which is typical and representative domestically. planning objectives, natural reserve limit
Based on the space reconstruction TSOS theory, we regulations and other designated ecological
should determine the spatial sequence of the function areas (Xi et al. 2015). The research has
decision-making of exploration and standardize the made the following results through the TSOS
order of space development to provide a decision- analysis.
making reference for similar regional development (1) Living space
due to the significance and theoretical value on According to the compilation of the TSOS
similar issues. model on the factors related to the urban suitability
index, living space can be divided into the grades
from 1 to 5 (see Figure 3). Without considering the
2.2 Data source
other two types of space, based on the
reclassification results, the regions with the grades
The data used in this research are from legal greater than 3 (shown in red and purple) are
investigation and staticis in the Mayangxi, Fujian
province, including the statistical year books in the
recent five years, argiculture and economy reports,
natural disaster statistical report, the overall plan
of Mayangxi (2009-2025), topographic map ( scale
of 1:10000), the 2012 survey data of land use
changes, etc. ArcGIS 10.1 is utilized to obtain
information about the usage of land, water and
other resources from the data of the land use
change. With the topographic map as the data
source, the establishment of the DEM (Digital
Elevation Model) and the grid size of 30x30 m, the
slope and elevation evaluation index can be
assessed through a spatial analysis. Information on
the natural disasters, basic farmland protection,
traffic conditions, foundation-bearing capacities
and nature reserves are obtained from the Changtai
County natural disaster statistics, Changtai County
geological disaster assessments, Changtai County
database of basic farmland, the changing data from
field investigation and remote sensing image as Figure 3 The living spatial evaluation of the Mayangxi
well as the related data. Ecotourism Area, Fujian Province, China.

603
J.Mt.Sci.(2017) 14(3): 595-608

regarded as high-value areas, with a percentage of

urban suitability of approximately 32.3%. The
suitable areas are mainly concentrated in Shili
village and its surrounding areas in the southern
part of Mayangxi, the panhandle area extending
along the arterial roads and the surrounding
original residential area in the central region, and
the scattered suitable areas in the valley near the
Wangting village on the outskirts of the Tianzhu
Mountain, t . The last one is not suitable for large
community construction and will only be
considered for service stations based on the
development planning of the tourist attractions.
Due to the superior location and resource
conditions of Mayangxi, in recent years, the
ecological tourism area has attracted a large
amount of tourism (and real estate) projects which
are scattered in the southern, central and northern
areas of the tourism business. As consequences,
this will result in the waste of resources,
infrastructure shortage, ecological landscape Figure 4 The ecology spatial evaluation of the
fragmentation and other issues. According to the Mayangxi Ecotourism Area, Fujian Province, China.
functional partition guidance of the TSOS model,
the future urban center should be concentrated in
the Shili Village. In the northern and central
regions, other than previous settlements and
service facilities around tourist attractions, the
introduction of new real estate projects should be
strictly controlled to form the overall spatial
pattern of “large region with small towns”.
(2) Ecology space
As shown in Figure 4, the degree of ecological
conservation suitability can be divided into the
grades from 1 to 5. The regions with reclassification
results that are graded higher than 3 (shown in
green and blue) are regarded as the high-value
areas, with a percentage of ecological conservation
suitability of approximately 56.2%. The high-value
area for ecological conservation is concentrated in
the central Tianzhu Mountain, forest farms in the
north, the Hongyan Reservoir and the upstream/
midstream region of the Mayangxi River.
According to the singular ecological spatial analysis,
Shili village in the south and Shanchong village in Figure 5 The tour-production spatial evaluation of
the Mayangxi Ecotourism Area, Fujian Province,
the north show the lowest suitability in the whole China. 1-5 categories: According to the national
area (as shown in red and purple). standard (GB/T18972-2003), tourism resources are
As the newly established ecological tourism divided into five grades. The fifth grade, which is the
supreme quality landscape, should be arranged as the
area, Mayangxi is not only a new town driven by
largest range of supporting services. On the contrary,
the development of the tourism industry but also a the low level of resources requires only a smaller
targeted priority for ecological conservation. In the service range.

604

process of urbanization, the prioritization for
ecological conservation space must be strictly
followed. To address the status quo of partial
interference in high ecological suitability space, a
good environmental impact assessment, ecological
recovery projects, forestation project expansion,
ecological immigration and the conversion of
cropland to forest (grassland) should be
undertaken to minimize ecological damages and
meanwhile improve ecological conservation.
(3) Production space
According to the survey and evaluation results
for Mayangxi’s tourism resources, the only tourism
resource at grade 5 is the Houfang Dragon Men
Guqin Culture Village. Those in grade 4 include the
Shanchong Ancient Residence, drifting activities in
the Mayangxi River, Tiancheng Mountain and
Tianzhu Mountain. The resources graded from 1 to
3 are more abundant and are scattered throughout
the whole area (see Figure 5). The development
potential of resources in different grades is not the
same. Utilizing the Buffer Wizard tool in ARCGIS
to conduct a spatial analysis on the resources of
different grades, as shown in Figure 5, areas
suitable for tourism are present in all the resource
monomer distribution areas. Those with the most
suitable areas are the Houfang and Shanchong
villages. There is a resource monomer of the
highest grade in Houfang. Nevertheless, the
resource density is lower than that of Shanchong in
the north. From the perspective of scale and benefit
for development, Shanchong is the most suitable
area for the development of the tourism industry.
Tianzhu Mountain in the central area, Tiancheng
Mountain in the south and the Lianshi Tourism
Areas all have significant potential due to their
solid foundation and high grade levels.
(4) Comprehensive spatial overlap evaluation
Using the TSOS model and the spatial analysis
technology, a comprehensive evaluation result can
be obtained, as shown in Figure 6. First of all,
green represents the suitable area for ecological
conservation in Mayangxi, which is mainly
concentrated in the northern part of Wangting,
Tianzhu Mountain in the northeast and the forest
farm in the north with a high spatial continuity and
a coverage rate of up to 59.6% of the whole area.
According to the substantial definition of the PLE
spatial reconstruction, tourism urbanization spatial
management aims at constructing an ecological
J.Mt.Sci.(2017) 14(3): 595-608
Figure 6 The comprehensive spatial evaluation of the
Mayangxi Ecotourism Area, Fujian Province, China.
security network. Therefore, this paper states that
the proportion of ecological conservation spatial in
a new tourist town should not be less than 50%.
Secondly, suitable living space areas (shown in red)
are distributed in Shili Village, south of the Tingxia
Forest Farm. The southern area is highly
concentrated, whereas the northern part is
fragmented with a total percentage of 27.7%. Public
services and transportation center, new
communities for residents, as well as tourism and
commercial blocks are constructed and centralized
in the southern part. The centralized settlement of
living areas, in line with the description of highly
modernized opportunity spaces in the TSOS model,
can protect ecological environment to the greatest
extent and reduce the cost of infrastructure
arrangements. Thus, this is beneficial for the
evacuation, management and optimization of
spatial resources. The small central towns in the
south should establish a clear border for urban
expansion and establish a green belt to prevent
excessive urban expansion. Thirdly, the final
establishment of production space needs to take
the spatial diversity of tourist attractions and
resources into account. Based on the Buffer
analysis with the actual situation of tourism
monomers, the suitable area for production space
(shown in blue) can be ascertained. The suitable
605
J.Mt.Sci.(2017) 14(3): 595-608
area is distributed with tourist attractions, with a
total percentage of approximately 11.5%.
Notably, due to the strong spatial penetration
of tourism, some beneficial opportunities for the
development of tourism exist in both ecological
and urban spaces. For instance, although the urban
area is a highly concentrated area for residential
communities, it is also a high consumption area
with catering, lodging, shopping and entertainment;
also, most small tourist towns offer tourist services
and tourist transportation. Aside from the
operation under the constraints of the forest park,
headstream conservation and other related
regulations, some ecotourism activities with low
artificial footprints and low profiles (non-group) in
nature can be conducted in the ecological areas,
and responsible tourist behaviors can be rewarded.
Therefore, although the production space in the
form of purely tourist attractions only accounts for
11.5%, the high potential space that is suitable for
tourism is as high as 30%, which just meets the
basic standard of the “homogeneous expansion
fuzzy boundary” of the production space.
3 Discussion and Conclusion
This paper focuses on the spatial management
problems of new tourist towns. Based on the
interactive relationship of the PLE space, the TSOS
model is first proposed to establish the spatial
division index systems for "living, production and
ecology.” The model of spatial management
includes three main classes, nine subclasses and
twenty-four small classes for evaluation factors.
Based on TSOS model, the Mayangxi ecotourism
area is examined. Shili village in the southern area
of Mayangxi is suitable for the concentrated layout
of urban construction to undertake the functions of
residential settlement, tourism services and
transportation centers, featuring the most frequent
human activity and the highest degree of
interference and covering 32.3% of the total area.
Tourist attractions in the production space are
distributed along the Mayangxi River from north to
south and are centered in the Shanchong village,
covering 11.5% of the total area. The greatest part
of the total area is the ecological space,
corresponding to the ecotourism position and
using the central Tianzhu Mountain as the core,
606
which is the regional ecological center and
functions as an ecological security barrier to cover
56.2% of the area in total.
There is a strong interdependence and
interaction between tourism, the ecological
environment and community service. The
traditional ROS theory focuses only on the
coordination between the tourism activities and the
ecological environment (Karen et al. 2009).
However, GUNN's theory of the tourism destination
system focuses on the spatial relation between the
community service and tourist attractions (Clare
1982). Based on the practice and exploration of the
PLE spatial controls, although it has achieved rapid
development in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai,
Hangzhou and other developed cities (Miao et al.
2013), the uniform standards of the PLE space
definition and classification have not been properly
formed until now (Ma et al. 2004). Given the
background of the new types of urbanization, more
studies on the PLE space relationship and spatial
partitions in new tourist towns are needed to better
promote the tourism development and urbanization
process. Therefore, the building of the TSOS model
not only represents the evolution and development
of the management theory on traditional recreation
space but also stands for the practice and innovation
of the existing functional partition methods to
provide the practical theory for the orderly layout of
new tourist town space in the future.
Under the background of regional differences
in the form of space utilization, different social and
economic development activities will lead to the
differences in regional space restructuring modes
and its contents (Li et al. 2014), which will
certainly have new requirements for spatial use and
the corresponding regulations. Attention should be
paid to the regional and stage-by-stage nature of
the TSOS application, and innovative studies
should be conducted on the regional spatial
management patterns, considering the local
conditions. Although the TSOS model yields a
tourist town spatial restructuring method based on
the PLE space perspective, there is still no
established quota for the proportion of the PLE
spaces, which will become the focus of future
studies. Compared with the traditional tourism
areas, there is no pattern to follow the tourist
activities in new types of spaces in the TSOS model.
Nevertheless, the model still requires further

studies on the preferences and quality of tourists’
recreation activities in the future. Regardless of
whether it can scientifically and reasonably guide
the spatial restructuring of specific tourist areas,
the key is land planning and the innovation of
management-related policy and model. The TSOS
model mainly involves the mechanism innovation
of land circulation and the associated industries,
transformation of social and economic structure,
residents of fusion degree promotion, the visual
management of rural landscape resources (VRM).
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