Progress and Tendency of Research on the National Geopark Tourism Services System in China

This article focuses on the construction of Geopark tourism services system model through the statistical analysis from the perspective of system theory to evaluate the progress of the Geopark tourism studies in China and to figure out the research tendency regarding the Geopark tourism in future. Based on the review and statistical analysis of the literature of 627 kinds in amount, including journal articles, conference papers, Master´s Degree theses and doctorate dissertations, the theoretical studies of Geopark tourism services system demonstrated an unbalanced trend with the research mainly concentrated on the investigation and evaluation of the geologic relics or the strategies concerning the geological tourism resources development. Few studies have been made in the fields of the core attraction system in the Geopark tourism or the services guarantee system of Geopark tourism, which have not drawn enough concerns from the research professionals. In terms of the currently existing studies, the empirical studies of the individual cases account for the main part with fairly weak theoretical foundation while the qualitative descriptive studies outweigh the quantitative ones. Due to the absence of interdisciplinary studies, the systematic and comprehensive studies of the above-mentioned theme are left to be furthered. Despite the fact that the present studies of the national Geopark mainly fall into the range of the investigation and evaluation of the geologic relics or the strategies concerning the geological tourism resources development, the tourism development of Geopark is focused on the resources-oriented mode. The six major tendencies shall be paid to more attention regarding the Geopark studies, namely tendency of specialization and refinement, the tendency of multidisciplinary research, the tendency of scientific management, ecological immersion tendency, caring for humanism and tendency of more quantitative methods involved.