URBAN TOURISM RESEARCH METHODOLOGY——A Case Study of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Area

This paper tries to apply a new and more comprehensive method to urban tourism research in an expanded field instead of only partially, unilaterally and separately focusing on the city itself. Taking the urban tourism of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao as an example, it aims at presenting a new spatial system of urban tourism research and pointing out the new orientation of urban tourism research in combination of macro level and micro level, from description to explanation. The meanings of the spatial framework construction for urban tourism study are to make clear how urban tourism studies vary with the changes of dimensions of time and space. This is a meaningful discussion because it will bring great changes to the using of literatures, the opening of research perspectives on urban tourism and the upgrading of theories, so as to create a new stage for urban tourism study.