旅游流是旅游地理学的基本问题,而旅游流空间模式的研究,自20世纪50年代以来则是旅游流研究的热点问题。通过文献分析法,本文将旅游流空间模式基本理论梳理为圈层结构理论、核心边缘理论、空间扩散理论。在此基础上,揭示其存在的若干问题,包括研究中存在的“区域视角”和“旅游者个体视角”混淆的认知问题、旅游客源地和旅游目的地在区域视角下如何界定的问题、空间模式研究中广泛存在的“二元陷阱”问题、区域间旅游职能分化及其分化程度尚无科学分析的问题等。文末对未来研究进行了展望,以期从理论意义上深化旅游流基本问题的建构。需指出的是,旅游流作为“非工作流”的一种,其“流现象”、“流空闻”和“流效应”同样可适用于其它形式的“流研究”。
Tourist flow has long been a basic issue of tourism geography. Researches on spatial patterns of tourist flow have been very popular since 1950s. After literature review, the authors classify the spatial patterns of tourist flow into three basic theories which are concentric zone theory, centre-periphery theory and spatial diffusion theory. Concentric zone theory stresses on the regular, centripetal and hierarchical structure from the inner zone to the outlying zone. Centre-periphery theory reflects the relationship between the core areas and the peripheral areas from dependence perspective and spatial diffusion theory research the spatial pattern, flowing process of tourist flow from dynamic angle. This paper makes a sketch map from two dimensional scales to visualize the basic spatial patterns of tourist flow. One dimensional scale covers a hierarchical ordering which is "single point dimension, point to point dimension and systematic dimension". The other dimensional scale spans a spectrum, which reveals the above three basic spatial patterns of tourist flow from left to right. The research finds that the problems existing in tourism studies which are that (1)there exists confusion of "regional perspective" for tourist flow and "individualistic perspective" for single tourist for a long time. Tourist flow should be studied from regional perspective; (2) definitions of tourist origin and tourist destination from regional perspective is confused; (3) "dual trap" is existing in a wide range in spatial patterns of tourist flow but scientific analysis of differences in the functional tourist areas (FTA) are absent; (4) unilateral flowing presented in contemporary studies contradicts with the practical bidirectional inter-regional flow; (5) the research on the direction of tourism flow diffusing only adopted the qualitative method, and only provided empirical evaluations on the statistic of tourist flow and tourism phenomenon; (6) few research focus on spatial diffusion in