Study on Coupling and Coordinated Development of Regional Tourism Industry and New-type Urbanization Using Entropy Method: A Case Study of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

The new development pattern of "dual circulation" raises interesting questions regarding new pathways of coordinated development between the tourism industry and urbanization. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Greater Bay Area) is a connecting area of internal and external circulation of China’s economy, and accordingly, this paper selects the “9 + 2” urban agglomeration of the Greater Bay Area as the study area. Given the differences in statistical indexes and units among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, this paper selects suitable indexes to establish an evaluation system for development of the tourism industry and new-type urbanization. The paper then calculates the comprehensive development level and coupling coordination degree of the tourism industry and new-type urbanization in the 11 cities of the Greater Bay Area from 2010 to 2019 using the entropy method and coupling coordination degree model. The results show that the comprehensive development levels of and coupling coordination degree between the tourism industry and new-type urbanization in the 11 cities exhibit evident grading. Ranking the high-quality development level from high to low, the 11 cities can be divided into three echelons: Guangzhou is the first echelon, Shenzhen and Hong Kong are the second echelon, and the other cities are the third echelon. All 11 cities exhibited a steady development trend in the period. Accordingly, this paper further puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to cope with the "dual circulation" strategy and continuously enhance the benign interaction between the development of the tourism industry and the process of urbanization.