A Coupling Relationship between New-Type Urbanization and Tourism Resource Conversion Efficiency: A Case Study of the Yellow River Basin in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript deal with the panel data of nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2019, this paper uses entropy TOPSIS, the super-SBM model, the coupling coordination degree model, the GM (1, 1) model, Tobit regression, and other methods to explore the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between new-type urbanization and tourism resource conversion efficiency (TRCE) in the Yellow River Basin. The authors claim found that Industrial structure, cultural media investment, science and technology investment, and communication level are the important factors that affect the CCD of new-type urbanization and TRCE in the Yellow River Basin.
The article is an original contribution, and the topic is of interest to the readership of the journal such as Sustainability. The presentation is adequate; anyway, I have detected some criticisms in the text that should be properly addressed.
The Authors can benefit from the comments below to improve their paper.
1. Abstract is too long. The abstract should begin with a brief but precise statement of the problem or issue, followed by a description of the research method and design, the major findings, and the conclusions reached. It is recommended that authors briefly describe their research contributions in the abstract section.
2. Avoid the repetition of keywords in the title. It is suggested to rewrite keywords.
3. I don't understand what scientific or practical implications work has. like, what suggestions do you make for planning or developing policies? Please, clarify this in the discussion and conclusion.
4. The aim and the methodology for the aggerations of data to me can be considered good, and in this type of paper, I don't like to value the technical solutions in a specific way. The problem is when the author links the result with the decision-making.
5. Therefore, I didn't understand the practical applications of the methodology in decision-making. About the “3.2 Spatiotemporal characteristics of CCD between new-type urbanization and TRCE” resolution, the authors have to specify the type of strategies that the study can support or suggest. (which type of the plans or project, how the decision-makers can be used this study to support the new strategies).
6. Therefore, I think the Authors need to develop the discussion and conclusion about this to enhance their work because, in other ways, the beautiful methodology and data elaboration are unuseful and it becomes a simple methodological exercise, but I don't think this is the case.
7. It is recommended to summarize research contributions and reflections in the conclusion.
8. The methodology section of a research paper answers two main questions: How was the data collected or generated? And, how was it analyzed? Some methodological mathematical models. Please cite the correct source.
Other suggestions
(1) Please review the entire document for typographical errors and any other necessary corrections, check headings, tables, and figures.
(2) Authors should check this manuscript for the grammar.
(3) Authors should follow the journal format.
(4) Authors should follow the journal format as follow:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions
See the Reference List and Citations Guide for more detailed information.
https://www.mdpi.com/authors/references
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Editors and Reviewers:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Coupling Relationship between New-Type Urbanization and Tourism Resource Conversion Efficiency: A Case Study of the Yellow River Basin in China (sustainability-1856980)”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in blue in the paper. The main corrections in the manuscript and the responses to the reviewers' comments are listed below.
- Response to comment:
Abstract is too long. The abstract should begin with a brief but precise statement of the problem or issue, followed by a description of the research method and design, the major findings, and the conclusions reached. It is recommended that authors briefly describe their research contributions in the abstract section.
Response: Simplified at the beginning and briefly supplemented with research contributions.
The integrated development of New-type urbanization and tourism is of great significance. In view of this, based on the panel data of nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2019, this paper uses entropy TOPSIS, the super-SBM model, the coupling coordination degree model, the GM (1, 1) model, Tobit regression and other methods to explore the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between new-type urbanization and tourism resource conversion efficiency (TRCE) in the Yellow River Basin. During the research period, we found that (1) the development index of new-type urbanization in the Yellow River Basin showed a steady upwards trend, and TRCE was generally stable. (2) The CCD between new-type urbanization and TRCE in the Yellow River Basin fluctuated and rose, with an average annual CCD of 0.716, indicative of the intermediate coordination stage, and showed an overall spatial distribution pattern of "midstream region > downstream region > upstream region". The centre of gravity of the CCD shifted to the north-west, and the type of CCD jumped rapidly to a better stage, especially in the midstream region. From the perspective of future trends, the coupling and coordination relationship between the two major systems will continue to be optimized from 2019 to 2025, and the midstream region will maintain a high growth level. (3) Industrial structure, cultural media investment, science and technology investment, and communication level are the important factors that affect the CCD of new-type urbanization and TRCE in the Yellow River Basin. The CCD of new-type urbanization and TRCE in the Yellow River basin tends to be better as a whole, but the regional differences are obvious. Therefore, in the process of policy implementation, special attention should be paid to the grasp of regional differences to avoid policy failure. This is very important to the Yellow River Basin and equally important to other regions.
- Response to comment:
Avoid the repetition of keywords in the title. It is suggested to rewrite keywords.
Response: urbanization; tourism industry development; coupling relation; Yellow River Basin
- Response to comment:
I don't understand what scientific or practical implications work has. like, what suggestions do you make for planning or developing policies? Please, clarify this in the discussion and conclusion.
Response: For this question, We rewrote it in the conclusion and discussion section. It highlights the importance of adapting measures to local conditions before the implementation of the policy.
Urbanization and the tourism industry have been hot topics in current urban studies. The development strategy of integrating urbanization and the tourism industry has been recognized and adopted by most countries and regions in the world, and it is used as a crucial approach to stimulate regional economic development. Nonetheless, it is not uncommon for local governments to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach regardless of the real local situation. As a result, they not only failed to effectively improve the local economy, but also caused varying degrees of a negative impact and even damage to local industry and ecological environment[52-53]. Therefore, the effectiveness of policy depends not only on resource input, but also on whether it adapts to the actual situation and local conditions. It can be drawn from the above analysis that the CCD of new-type urbanization and TRCE in the Yellow River Basin are generally improving, and will maintain an uptrend in the future. However, from a microscopic point of view, there have been great differences among regions in the Yellow River Basin. Midstream region shows a high degree of integration between new-type urbanization and TRCE with the fastest growth rate, while downstream region tends to grow gradually and upstream region grows relatively slowly, showing obvious spatial heterogeneity. If a universal promotion strategy is adopted, it is bound to have a negative impact on several regions. Therefore, it is necessary to fully understand the different development situations of different regions in order to implement a proper strategy, which is also the purpose and significance of this study. This paper comprehensively uses a variety of methods to fully demonstrate the temporal and spatial pattern and evolution of new-type urbanization and TRCE in regions at the Yellow River Basin, providing a reference for precise formulation and implementation of related policies.
- Response to comment:
The aim and the methodology for the aggerations of data to me can be considered good, and in this type of paper, I don't like to value the technical solutions in a specific way. The problem is when the author links the result with the decision-making.
Response: For this question, We rewrote it in the conclusion and discussion section. For the specific situation of each region, the corresponding suggestions are put forward.
Specifically, for regions in the upstream region with poor coupling coordination, priority should be given to their local ecological vulnerability, and new tourism resources and products should be thought through carefully under the premise of suitable development, so as to improve urban infrastructure and services. If the comprehensive driving effect of the tourism industry is barely satisfactory, the strategy should be resolutely abandoned. For regions in the midstream region, the two-way advantages of new urbanization and the tourism industry should continue to be brought into full play, and the investment in capital, technology and personnel should be increased to promote the integration to a higher level. For downstream region with relatively better economic development, the structure and focus of industrial development should be considered as a whole to determine whether tourism should be developed as a leading industry. For regions with fewer tourism resources and a higher level of urbanization, the development focus should be shifted to other industries.
- Response to comment:
Therefore, I didn't understand the practical applications of the methodology in decision-making. About the “3.2 Spatiotemporal characteristics of CCD between new-type urbanization and TRCE” resolution, the authors have to specify the type of strategies that the study can support or suggest. (which type of the plans or project, how the decision-makers can be used this study to support the new strategies).
Response: Similar to Question 3, we highlight the importance of spatiotemporal descriptions to grasp the precision of policy implementation.
It can be drawn from the above analysis that the CCD of new-type urbanization and TRCE in the Yellow River Basin are generally improving, and will maintain an uptrend in the future. However, from a microscopic point of view, there have been great differences among regions in the Yellow River Basin. Midstream region shows a high degree of integration between new-type urbanization and TRCE with the fastest growth rate, while downstream region tends to grow gradually and upstream region grows relatively slowly, showing obvious spatial heterogeneity. If a universal promotion strategy is adopted, it is bound to have a negative impact on several regions. Therefore, it is necessary to fully understand the different development situations of different regions in order to implement a proper strategy, which is also the purpose and significance of this study. This paper comprehensively uses a variety of methods to fully demonstrate the temporal and spatial pattern and evolution of new-type urbanization and TRCE in regions at the Yellow River Basin, providing a reference for precise formulation and implementation of related policies.
- Response to comment:
Therefore, I think the Authors need to develop the discussion and conclusion about this to enhance their work because, in other ways, the beautiful methodology and data elaboration are unuseful and it becomes a simple methodological exercise, but I don't think this is the case.
Response: We rewrote the conclusion and discussion part to strengthen the elaboration of the significance of the work and the research contribution. The specific content is reflected in the whole part.
- Response to comment:
It is recommended to summarize research contributions and reflections in the conclusion.
Response: Added elaboration on research significance and research contribution.
The study further verified the importance of the coupling development of new-type urbanization and the tourism industry, revealed the spatiotemporal coupling law and influencing factors of the efficiency of new-type urbanization and tourism resource conversion in the Yellow River Basin, and provided some data support and a theoretical reference for the future urban planning and policy implementation of the Yellow River Basin. At the same time, this study also provides a certain application model for the integrated development of urbanization and tourism industry in other regions. In order to avoid policy failure, it is crucial and important to explore the characteristics of spatio-temporal evolution before the implementation of the policy. The Yellow River basin is vast, and the development of tourism industry and urban construction varies from place to place.
- Response to comment:
The methodology section of a research paper answers two main questions: How was the data collected or generated? And, how was it analyzed? Some methodological mathematical models. Please cite the correct source.
Response: Some supplements are made to the method description of grey prediction, and key English literatures are supplemented; the cited literatures of super-SBM and entropy weight TOPSIS are revised.
The traditional GM (1,1) model is widely used and suitable for the prediction of a small amount of short-term data, but it lacks self-learning and adaptive ability. In or-der to further improve the accuracy of the model, the new information grey model and metabolism grey model were subsequently proposed [48]. Based on the existing data, this paper verifies the above three grey models respectively, and selects the model with the smallest error to determine the final prediction result.
- Zhao, D.; Li, C.; Wang, Q.; Yuan, J., Comprehensive evaluation of national electric power development based on cloud model and entropy method and TOPSIS: A case study in 11 countries. Journal of Cleaner Production 2020, 277, 123190.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123190
- Tone, K., A slacks-based measure of super-efficiency in data envelopment analysis. European Journal of Operational Research 2002, 143, (1), 32-41.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-2217(01)00324-1
- Grey Information: Theory and Practical Applications. Kybernetes 2008, 37, (1), 189-189.
https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920810851078
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Should you have any questions, please contact us without hesitate.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Yours Sincerely,
Ming Hao
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The new-type urbanization strategy for China promotes economic transformation and progress and provides significant support for industrial development. The authors claim that tourism has become an important driving force to promote the new-type urbanization due to its long industrial chain, low energy consumption of resources and multiple employment levels. The authors examine economic development and the tourism component in the Yellow River basin as a case study. They use panel data of nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2019, and apply entropy TOPSIS, the super-SBM model, the coupling coordination degree model, the GM (1, 1) model, Tobit regression and other methods to explore the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between new-type urbanization and tourism resource conversion efficiency (TRCE) throughout the region.
I think the paper is fine. I have some questions/suggestions.
1) It would be helpful if the authors had the paper edited for English grammar, usage and structure. Some of the descriptions of the analysis and the findings are difficult to follow:
2) For the ecological variables, the authors use three that one would expect to demonstrate a positive trend over time. However, my guess is that there are also “ecological” variables that would not (air quality, fossil fuel combustion, traffic congestion, etc), Picking ecological variables, therefore may affect the results of this analysis. Without asking for sensitivity analysis, I would suggest notes in the text that address the uncertainty created by their pick of variable types.
Author Response
Dear Editors and Reviewers:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Coupling Relationship between New-Type Urbanization and Tourism Resource Conversion Efficiency: A Case Study of the Yellow River Basin in China (sustainability-1856980)”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in Orange in the paper. The main corrections in the manuscript and the responses to the reviewers' comments are listed below.
- Response to comment:
It would be helpful if the authors had the paper edited for English grammar, usage and structure. Some of the descriptions of the analysis and the findings are difficult to follow.
Response:
We are very sorry for our incorrect writing. We rechecked and revised the article. The main revised parts were marked in Orange.
e.g. this rapid growth rate has become an important that offers strong support for China's economic growth in this new era.
urbanization has become an important that offers strong support for China's economic growth in this new era.
- Response to comment:
For the ecological variables, the authors use three that one would expect to demonstrate a positive trend over time. However, my guess is that there are also “ecological” variables that would not (air quality, fossil fuel combustion, traffic congestion, etc), Picking ecological variables, therefore may affect the results of this analysis. Without asking for sensitivity analysis, I would suggest notes in the text that address the uncertainty created by their pick of variable types.
Response: As you suggested, this is indeed a problem that we have neglected. For the discussion on the variability of ecological variables, we have supplemented and explained in the conclusion part, and we will improve it in the future research.
In addition, in the construction of the urbanization development index, on the basis of available data, this study selects the green coverage rate of built-up areas, the per capita park green space area and the harmless treatment rate of domestic garbage as ecological variables. However, compared with fossil fuel combustion and traffic con-gestion, the three indicators are less stable, and tend to show positive trends over time, affecting the accuracy of the final results. Therefore, it is also extremely necessary to increase the stability of ecological indicators in later studies.
We appreciate for Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Should you have any questions, please contact us without hesitate.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Yours Sincerely,
Ming Hao
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript has been revised according to the comments of the reviewer. It could be accepted for publication in Sustainability.
suggestions
(1) Please review the entire document for typographical errors and any other necessary corrections. Check headings, tables, and figures.
(2) Authors should check this manuscript for grammar.
(3) Authors should follow the journal format.
(4) Authors should follow the journal format as follow:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions
See the Reference List and Citations Guide for more detailed information.
https://www.mdpi.com/authors/references
Author Response
Dear Editors and Reviewers:
Thanks very much for your kind work and consideration on publication of our paper. On behalf of my co-authors, we would like to express our great appreciation to editor and reviewers. At the same time, we reviewed and revised the following questions again to ensure the accuracy of the article.
(1) Please review the entire document for typographical errors and any other necessary corrections. Check headings, tables, and figures.
(2) Authors should check this manuscript for grammar.
(3) Authors should follow the journal format.
(4) Authors should follow the journal format as follow:
e.g.
TANG Hong,LIU Yujing,MA Xuefeng. Effect Evaluation of Coordinated Development between Tourism Industry and New Urbanization—A Case Study of Zhangjiajie. Economic Geography 2017, 37, 216-223,
doi: 10.15957/j.cnki.jjdl.2017.02.029. (Chinese)
TANG Hong,LIU Yujing,MA Xuefeng. Effect Evaluation of Coordinated Development between Tourism Industry and New Urbanization—A Case Study of Zhangjiajie. Economic Geography 2017, 37, 216-223. https://doi.org/10.15957/j.cnki.jjdl.2017.02.029 (Chinese)
Thank you and best regards.
Yours Sincerely,
Ming Hao
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
