Economic benefit domain of tourism area: Case study of great wall tourism area in China

A major challenge for sustainable tourism is the disparity of economic benefits for local residents. This paper provides a model of tourism areas´ economic benefit domain within the framework of sustainable tourism. Field investigation by questionnaire and interview are performed in the Badaling Great Wall tourism area, a world cultural heritage site, and through which the threshold and spatial structure of sample sites´ tourism benefits are analyzed according to the tourism benefit domain model. Finally, some of the theoretical and practical implications have been concluded that, the tourism managers and planners should build up different industrial strategies and community policies due to the distance-decay structure of tourism area´s economic benefit domain model.