Influence of high-speed rail on tourist flow network in typical tourist cities: an empirical study based on the Hefei–Fuzhou high-speed rail in China

This study focused on the impact of high-speed rail construction on the structure of tourist flow networks in typical tourist cities. Through three consecutive questionnaire surveys and online surveys, using Gephi and GIS software to carry out a tracking study of Huangshan City. The results were as follows: (1) After high-speed rail opening and operation, the proportion of tourists within the range of 400–1200 km from the destination kept growing, and the tourist destination attraction radius expanded to about 800 km, which is more than twice than that when there was no high-speed rail. (2) The route arrangement of high-speed rail tourists is more flexible. Meanwhile, partners in tourist cities along the route are increasing, and the “circle” cooperation relationship with a city as the core has been broken, forming a “chain” cooperation structure distributed along the high-speed rail. (3) High-speed rail has an important influence on the function of the tourist flow network node, which significantly enhances the traffic function of cities along the route, but the impact on tourism function is not significant, while the traffic and tourism functions of cities along the non-high-speed rail are gradually declining.