Exploring the Spatial Relationship between Nighttime Light and Tourism Economy: Evidence from 31 Provinces in China

Nighttime light (NTL) data have become increasingly practical and are now widely used in studies on urbanization, energy consumption, population estimation, socio-economic evaluation, etc. Based on NTL data and the basic tourism economy (TE) data from 31 provinces of China in 2019, this paper adopted a geographic concentration index, inconsistency index, spatial agglomeration coupling index, global and Local Moran’s index and geographical detector to explore the spatial relationship between NTL and TE. The results of the study were as follows. Firstly, there is a high spatial correlation between NTL and TE. Secondly, the concentration degree, as well as the concentrated distribution area of NTL and TE, are very similar, roughly showing a higher concentration in East and South-Central China. Thirdly, NTL and TE show a type of coordinated development in East and North China, and a TE surpassing NTL in Southwest and South-Central China. The spatial agglomeration coupling index is higher in North China, South-Central China and the coastal regions of East China, and relatively lower in Southwest and Northwest China. Furthermore, in the spatial agglomeration distribution of NTL and TE, there is an obvious high–high and low–low agglomeration. Finally, the geographical detector analysis showed that the driving factor of tourism economy level (TEL) also has a great influence on NTL. The spatial distribution of NTL and TE is integrated to reasonably allocate tourism resources for different areas and promote the sustainable development of NTL and TE among regions