Investigating the Accessibility Between Civil Airports and Tourist Locations in Tourist Cities in Yunnan Province, China

Coordinated development between landside transport at civil airports and aviation networks is key for determining the attractiveness and competition of tourist cities. However, only a few studies have focused on the accessibility of tourist locations around civil airports in tourist cities in China. This paper calculates the service coverage of civil airports for tourist locations in Yunnan in selected years, consisting of 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015, by using an accessibility calculation method with the shortest path and a spatial analysis method in ArcGIS software. The results are compared with the structural characteristics of the aviation network in corresponding years. Additionally, some suggestions are given regarding transportation development and sustainable environmental development in tourist cities. The findings show that the service coverage of civil airports in Yunnan has gradually improved over time. Specifically, 83.41% of tourist locations can be reached within 1.5 h of driving from an airport, and all tourist destinations could be reached within 3 h in 2015. Among all civil airports, the airports in the hub city of Kunming and at world-renowned tourist destinations such as Dali and Lijiang displayed the highest airport service capabilities for tourist locations. Meanwhile, the aviation network of Yunnan Province is constantly improving with an increased number of airports and airlines, and it shows the centralization trend toward KMG. However, the mismatch is observed not only in tourist cities with hub airports, such as Kunming, but also in some cities located in remote areas (i.e., far from the central city). This finding reveals that in these tourist cities in Yunnan, the development of airport transport has not considered coordination between the airline network and the service coverage of civil airports for tourist locations. For the sustainable development of tourist cities, the equal importance of airport landside transport and the airline network in the planning and management of air transport should be emphasized.