Frontiers in Business, Economics and Management 
ISSN: 2766-824X | Vol. 16, No. 1, 2024 

 

251 

Coupling Analysis of Cultural and Tourism Integration 
Development in Anhui Based on Entropy Power Method 

Jiaming Zhu, Caiyun Zhang * 

College of Statistics and Applied Mathematics, Anhui University of Finance and Economics, Bengbu 233000, China 

* Corresponding author: Caiyun Zhang (Email: zhangcy20012023@163.com) 

 

Abstract: For the integrated development of two industries of culture and tourism in Anhui Province, firstly select the relevant 
indicators of culture and tourism industry in Anhui Province from 2012 to 2021, use entropy weight method and coupling 

coordination degree model and combine with grey correlation analysis to measure the development level of two industries of 

culture and tourism in Anhui Province, the degree of coupling and coordination of culture and tourism industry and the correlation 

between the two systems, analyze the reasons for the change of coordination level in the coupling process in Anhui Province, 

and put forward suggestions for promoting the deep integrated development of two industries in Anhui Province. Analyze the 

reasons for the change of the coordination level in the coupling process in Anhui Province, and put forward suggestions for 

promoting the deep integration and development of the two industries in Anhui Province in the light of the problems existing in 

the process of coupling and coordinating the development of the two industries in Anhui Province: (1) adhere to promote the 

integration of development, increase the supply of rich and diverse cultural tourism products; (2) make full use of comparative 

advantages, improve the market value of cultural tourism products; (3) strengthen publicity and promotion, improve the brand 

effect of cultural tourism; (4) improve and enhance the level of cultural tourism services, and cultivate new talents; (5) increase 

policy support, to provide help for the development of cultural tourism industry. 

Keywords: Cultural and tourism integration, Quality improvement and expansion, Coupled coordination model, Entropy 
weight method, Anhui Province. 

 

1. Introduction 

The culture and tourism industry are a composite industry 

that integrates the two fields of culture and tourism, and has 

enormous economic, social and cultural value. At present, the 

government is actively supporting the development of culture 

and tourism industry, in which promoting culture and tourism 

consumption is an important development direction. 

Promoting the integration of the culture and tourism industry 

is of great significance for the transformation and upgrading 

of the tourism industry as well as the realisation of cultural 

inheritance [1-4]. In 2018, the establishment of the Ministry 

of Culture and Tourism provided institutional guarantee for 

the integration of the culture and tourism industry; in 2019, 

the General Office of the State Council promulgated the 

Opinions on Further Stimulating the Consumption Potential 

of Culture and Tourism, which once again emphasised the 

promotion of the integration of the culture and tourism 

industry; in 2021, China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism 

issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of 

Culture and Tourism", which explicitly proposed to promote 

the integration of culture and tourism, emphasise the cultural 

connotation of tourism, use tourism to promote the 

dissemination of culture, and create a number of national 

demonstration zones for the integrated development of the 

cultural industry and tourism industry, and the issuance of 

these plans and policies has contributed to the achieve the 

integrated development of the culture and tourism industries 

provide solid support; in 2022, the 20th National Congress of 

the Party emphasised the need to stimulate the vitality of 

traditional culture and make it compatible with contemporary 

society. The integration of culture and tourism makes 

traditional and region-specific cultures known to the public 

and makes it possible to promote culture in the form of 

widespread participation. At the same time, the integration of 

culture and tourism is an important means for the 

development of cultural industry and innovation of cultural 

products, and an important way to improve the quality of 

tourism, deepen tourists' understanding of history and culture, 

enhance cultural confidence, and promote the synergistic and 

high-quality development of culture and tourism. 

Anhui Province, with its long history and unique culture, 

has rich tourism resources, in addition to the famous 

Huangshan Mountain and ancient villages, there are also 

scenic spots such as Tianzhu Mountain and Jiuhua Mountain, 

as well as many museums and other cultural venues. With its 

rich historical deposits, Anhui has formed unique cultural 

characteristics and possesses an innate advantage of cultural 

and tourism integration. Deeply promoting the integration of 

culture and tourism in Anhui Province and enhancing the 

popularity of Anhui culture is of great significance for the 

integrated development of the national culture and tourism 

industry. 

2. Review of Literature 

At present, most of the foreign academic research on the 

"integration of culture and tourism" is based on the study of 

"cultural tourism", which mainly includes the concept of 

cultural tourism, cultural tourism products and cultural 

resources tourism development mode and the impact of 

cultural tourism and other research content. American scholar 

Greg Richard (2011) elaborated the importance of creativity 

for the integration of culture and tourism, and put forward 

cultural and creative activities as a new path for the 

integration and development of culture and tourism, so as to 

realize the optimization and upgrading of the overall 

resources of culture and tourism [5]; Howard Hughe and 



 

252 

Danielle Allen (2005), taking Central and Eastern Europe as 

the main body of the research, pointed out that through the 

development of cultural tourism, not only can it promote the 

development of cultural tourism, but also the development of 

cultural tourism, which can help to promote the development 

of cultural tourism. development of cultural tourism can not 

only promote economic development, but also reshape the 

national image [6]; Stastna Milada et al. (2020) selected three 

Austrian villages as representatives to study the impact of 

cultural tourism on local rural development [7]. With China's 

increasing attention to the culture and tourism industry, 

domestic scholars have begun to start from the relationship 

between the cultural industry and the tourism industry to 

explore the development of culture and tourism integration in 

depth. Long Jingran (2021), Huang Xiaoyu (2020), Fan Zhou 

(2019) and other scholars have conducted research in the 

practice of integrated development of culture and tourism [8, 

9]; Liu Yutang (2020), Zeng Yi (2020), and et al. have 

explored the important influence of the integration of culture 

and tourism on rural tourism and rural revitalization [10, 11]; 

Lijianmei (2016), using the scenic area of the Heavenly King 

City in Shandong Province as an example, has explored the 

role of cultural heritage on tourism brand enhancement in the 

context of culture and tourism integration [12]; Yu Ke (2022), 

Wen Ke (2020), Yue Fangmin (2020), Zhang Xin (2021), 

Fang Zhong (2018), and Zhang Yanfei (2013), et al. did 

innovative research on tourism development in different 

regions under the perspective of culture and tourism 

integration [13-17]. 

In summary, based on the results of the existing literature, 

it is found that there are fewer studies on the integration of 

culture and tourism industry in Anhui Province, therefore, in 

the context of the rapid development of tourism and culture 

industry, combined with the actual situation of Anhui 

Province, we examine the development situation of the 

integration of culture and tourism industry in Anhui Province 

from the angle of quantitative research, and analyze the level 

of the comprehensive development of the culture industry and 

tourism industry as well as the degree of coordination 

between the two, and explore the feasible paths for the 

realization of the depth of the integration of culture and 

tourism. Feasible path, help to create a unique Anhui culture 

and tourism system, play the core role of culture. 

3. Data Sources and Selection of 
Indicators 

3.1. Data Sources 

The data for this paper's study were obtained from the 

China Cultural Relics Statistical Yearbook (2012-2021), the 

China Tourism Statistical Yearbook (2012-2021) and the 

Anhui Statistical Yearbook (2012-2021). 

3.2. Selection of Indicators 

The selection of indicators is based on the following three 

criteria: (1) the measurement and coverage of the indicators 

to the industry or industry under study; (2) the degree of 

frequency of the indicators in the cultural industry and 

tourism industry; (3) the availability and historical continuity 

of the indicators to be studied. Based on the above criteria, 

this paper divides the primary indicators of the integrated 

development of culture and tourism into: economic benefits, 

the number of institutions and market size. The secondary 

indicators are shown in Table 1. 

 

Table 1. Indicators for measuring the development of cultural and tourism industries 

Categorization 
Level 1 

indicators 

Secondary measurement 

indicators 
Typology 

Level 1 

indicators 
Secondary measurement indicators 

Indicators for 

measuring 

cultural 

industries 

Economic 

benefit 

Institutional revenues in the 

cultural heritage sector (in 

thousands of dollars) 

Tourism 

Industry 

Measurem

ent 

Indicators 

Economic 

benefit 

Domestic tourism revenue of the 

province (billion yuan) 

Income from cultural market 

operators ($ million) 

Total foreign exchange earnings from 

tourism in the province (US$ billion) 

Cultural Services Expenses 

(Billions of Yuan) 

Operating income of travel agencies 

in the province (billion yuan) 

Revenue from performances by 

performing arts organizations 

(thousands of dollars) 

Operating income of star-rated hotels 

in the province (billion yuan) 

Number of 

institutions 

Number of public libraries 

(number) Number of 

institutions 

Number of travel agencies (homes) 

Institutions of mass culture 

(number) 
Number of star-rated hotels (homes) 

Market 

size 

Visits to museums (10,000) 

Market size 

Domestic tourist arrivals (billions) 

Number of performances in 

performing arts venues 

(10,000) 

Number of overseas, Hong Kong, 

Macao and Taiwan travelers (10,000) 

4. Research Methodology 

4.1. Entropy Weight Method 

As the measurement units and orders of magnitude of the 

indicators are different, the first step is to standardize the data 

and then obtain the weights of the corresponding indicators. 

Step 1 Data standardization: Since there are differences in 

the scale, order of magnitude and positive and negative 

indicators of the indicators, the positive indicators are 

standardized in accordance with formula (1), and the negative 

indicators are standardized in accordance with formula (2). 

𝑀𝑖𝑗 =
𝑋𝑖𝑗−𝑋𝑗𝑚𝑖𝑛

𝑋𝑗𝑚𝑎𝑥−𝑋𝑗𝑚𝑖𝑛
(+)(𝑖 = 1,2,3 … 𝑚; 𝑗 = 1,2,3 … , 𝑛) (1) 

𝑀𝑖𝑗 =
𝑋𝑗𝑚𝑎𝑥−𝑋𝑖𝑗

𝑋𝑗𝑚𝑎𝑥−𝑋𝑗𝑚𝑖𝑛
(−)(𝑖 = 1,2,3 … 𝑚; 𝑗 = 1,2,3 … , 𝑛) (2) 

In this functional equation, Xij represents the initial value 



 

253 

of the jth research indicator in the ith year; Xjmin and Xjmax 

represent the minimum and maximum values of the jth 

indicator in the data set of each year under study; Mij takes the 

value of the interval of 0 to 1, which represents the degree of 

Xij's contribution to the industrial system. In addition, in order 

to avoid the situation that the indicator value is zero, the study 

refers to the relevant literature, can add 0.01 for each 

observation data with the original value of 0. This treatment 

makes the indicator with the original value of 0 no longer zero 

after standardization, and ensures that all the indicators are 

within the range of (0, 1) after standardization. 

Step 2 Calculate the weight of the jth indicator in the ith 

year Yij: the entropy weight method is used to determine the 

weights of the coupled coordination degree model, and the 

weight of the jth indicator in the ith year in the overall 

proportion of the indicator is 

𝑌𝑖𝑗 = 𝑀𝑖𝑗 ∑ 𝑀𝑖𝑗
𝑛
𝑗=1⁄                (3) 

Step 3 Calculate the information entropy Fj for the jth 

indicator: 

𝐹𝑗 = −(𝑙𝑛𝑚)
−1 ∑ (𝑌𝑖𝑗 𝑙𝑛𝑌𝑖𝑗 )

𝑛
𝑗=1           (4) 

There are 0≤Fj≤1; when and only when Yij=0, make 

Yij×lnYij=0, which is easy to calculate. 

Step 4 Calculate the information entropy redundancy hj: 

ℎ𝑗 = 1 − 𝐸𝑗 (𝑗 = 1,2,3 … , 𝑛)           (5) 

Step 5 Calculate the indicator weights wj: 

𝑤𝑗 = ℎ𝑗 ∑ ℎ𝑗 (𝑗 = 1,2,3 … , 𝑛)
𝑛
𝑗⁄           (6) 

Where m is the total number of years to be studied and n is 

the total number of indicators selected for the respective 

measures of the cultural and tourism industries. 

4.2. Integrated Assessment Method 

The comprehensive evaluation method is used to measure 

the comprehensive index of cultural industry and tourism 

industry in Anhui Province. The total measurement formula 

of culture industry is C(y): 

𝐶(𝑦) = ∑ 𝑤𝑗 𝑞𝑖𝑗
𝑛
𝑗=1 (𝑖 = 1,2,3 … , 𝑚; 𝑗 = 1,2,3 … , 𝑛)  (7) 

Where Wj denotes the weight of the measurement function 

accounted for by the jth indicator of the cultural industry; qij 

denotes the standardised value of the jth indicator of the 

cultural industry in the ith year; C(y) denotes the overall 

measurement index of the cultural industry. 

The total measurement formula of tourism industry is: 

𝐸(𝑥) = ∑ 𝑤𝑗 𝑝𝑖𝑗
𝑛
𝑗=1 (𝑖 = 1,2,3 … , 𝑚; 𝑗 = 1,2,3 … , 𝑛)  (8) 

Where, where E(x) denotes the overall measurement index 

of the tourism industry; Wj denotes the weight of the 

measurement function accounted for by the jth indicator of 

the tourism industry; pij denotes the standardised value of the 

jth indicator of the tourism industry in the ith year. When E(x) > 

C(y) and |E(x) - C(y)| > 0.02, what is studied belongs to the 

lagging type of cultural development; when E(x) < C(y) and 

|E(x) - C(y)| > 0.02, what is studied belongs to the lagging 

type of tourism development; and when |E(x) - C(y)| ≤ 0.02, 

what is studied belongs to the type of simultaneous 

development of cultural and tourism industries. 

4.3. Coupled Coordination Degree Model 

(1) Coupling refers to the existence of interdependence, 

influence and constraints between different parts of the 

system, originating from physics [18-23]. In this paper, the 

cultural industry and tourism industry in Anhui Province are 

regarded as two independent systems, and the corresponding 

coupling degree model is established for measurement, which 

can effectively analyse the coordinated development between 

the two, and the calculation formula is: 

𝑀 = 2√𝐸(𝑥) ∙ 𝐶(𝑦) (𝐸(𝑥) + 𝐶(𝑦))⁄
2
        (9) 

Since there are only two major research projects on cultural 

and tourism industries in Anhui Province, the calculation 

formula can be simplified as follows: 

𝑀 = √𝐸(𝑥) ∙ 𝐶(𝑦) (𝐸(𝑥) + 𝐶(𝑦))⁄
2
       (10) 

(2) The coupling coordination degree function can 

effectively analyse the mutual degree of coordination 

between the cultural industry and the tourism industry, 

drawing on the previous relevant studies, to determine the 

coupling coordination degree formula is as follows: 

𝐿 = 𝛼𝐸(𝑥) + 𝛽𝐶(𝑦)             (11) 

In the formula, L represents the comprehensive 

coordination index of the integration of Anhui's cultural and 

tourism industries, which is a measure of the contribution of 

the overall development level of these two industries in the 

coupled coordination model; the cultural industry and tourism 

industry can be regarded as two equally important systems, so 

the coefficients to be determined (α and β) are both taken as 

0.5. 

𝐷 = √𝑀 ∙ 𝐿                (12) 

In the above formula, M represents the degree of coupling, 

L represents the index of comprehensive coordinated 

development of cultural industry and tourism industry, and D 

represents the degree of coupling coordination. 

(3) The "four-point" division method is adopted, and the 

stage of coupling and coordinated development of culture and 

tourism industry is divided into four coupling degree intervals, 

and the type of coupling and coordinated development can be 

divided into 10 grades according to different coupling 

coordination degrees, see Table 2. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

254 

Table 2. Coupling degree of culture and tourism industry and coupling coordination degree level division standard. 

Coupling degree Coupled developmental stages Degree of coupling coordination Coupling Coordination Level 

0≤C≤0.3 Infancy 

0.00~0.09 Extreme disorder 

0.10~0.19 Severe disorder 

0.20~0.29 Moderate disorder 

0.3<C≤0.5 Break-in period 
0.30~0.39 Mild disorder 

0.40~0.49 Proximity coordination 

0.5<C≤0.8 Plateau 

0.50~0.59 Sue for coordination 

0.60~0.69 Primary coordination 

0.70~0.79 Intermediate level coordination 

0.8<C≤1 Advanced stage 
0.80~0.89 Good coordination 

0.90~1.00 Quality coordination 

4.4. Grey Correlation Analysis Model 

Using grey correlation analysis (Table 3 shows the grey 

correlation level classification standard) to study the 

relationship between the subsystems of culture industry and 

tourism industry in Anhui Province, it can make the culture 

industry and tourism industry in Anhui Province form a 

benign development, promote the realization of culture and 

tourism industry to maximize the effect, and also make the 

relevant suggestions made more reasonable. The specific 

steps of grey correlation analysis are as follows: 

(1) Select the parent sequence and sub-sequence of culture 

and tourism. 

𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒: {𝑥1
(0)

(𝑚), 𝑥2
(0)

(𝑚), . . . , 𝑥𝑛
(0)

(𝑚)} (12) 

𝑆𝑢𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒: {𝑦1
(0)

(𝑚), 𝑦2
(0)

(𝑚), . . . , 𝑦𝑡
(0)

(𝑚)}   (13) 

Where m is the number of analysed regions, n and t are the 

number of original sequences of the parent and subsequence. 

(2) The parent and subsequence are homogenised to obtain 

the absolute difference between each subsequence and the 

parent sequence. 

∆𝑔(𝑚) = |𝑦𝑖
(0)

(𝑚) − 𝑦𝑖
(0)

(𝑚)|         (14) 

(3) Calculate the correlation coefficient.

𝜀𝑖(𝑝) =
𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑘|𝑦(𝑝)−𝑥𝑖(𝑝)|+𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑘 |𝑦(𝑝)−𝑥𝑖(𝑝)|

|𝑦(𝑝)−𝑥𝑖(𝑝)|+𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑘 |𝑦(𝑝)−𝑥𝑖(𝑝)|
∗

𝑥−𝜇

𝜎
                             (15) 

Where 𝛼 is the resolution coefficient, default is 0.5. 
(4) Calculate the correlation degree. 

𝑅 =
1

𝑞
∑ 𝜀𝑖(𝑝)

𝑞
𝑝=1              (16) 

(5) Judge the correlation level according to the correlation 

R value, and the judgement criteria are shown in Table 3. 

 

Table 3. Criteria for classification of grey correlation level of 
association 

Range of 

values 

level of 

association 
Degree of integration 

(0, 0.35] Lower correlation Lower level of integration 

(0.35, 0.65] 
Moderately 

related 

Medium level of 

integration 

(0.65, 0.85] Higher correlation 
Higher degree of 

integration 

(0.85, 1] Highly correlated 
Highest level of 

integration 

5. Analysis of Results 

5.1. Evaluation Results of the Comprehensive 
Development Level of Cultural Industry 

and Tourism Industry 

Table 4 is the overall comprehensive development level of 

culture industry and tourism industry in Anhui Province from 

2011 to 2020 as measured, and Figure 1 is the trend chart of 

the comprehensive development level of culture and tourism 

industry in Anhui Province. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 4. Comprehensive development level of cultural and tourism industries 

Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 

Cultural Industries Subsystem 0.0712 0.087 0.1741 0.211 0.3807 0.4636 0.6215 0.6909 0.8781 0.549 

Tourism Industry Subsystem 0.2881 0.3329 0.3464 0.4092 0.5806 0.3944 0.5148 0.626 0.6876 0.192 

 

 



 

255 

 
Figure 1. Trends in the comprehensive development level of cultural industry in Anhui Province 

As can be seen from Table 4 and Figure 1, the 

comprehensive development level of Anhui province's 

cultural industry from 2011 to 2019 rose from 0.071 to 0.878, 

an overall increase of 12.3 times, indicating that the level of 

Anhui province's cultural industry has been a relatively large 

increase in the level of the cultural industry, due to the impact 

of the epidemic, the level of the comprehensive development 

of the cultural industry in 2020 has declined, but relative to 

2011, there is still a 7.6-fold From 2011 to 2019, the 

comprehensive development level of Anhui's tourism 

industry rose from 0.288 to 0.687, an increase of 2.3 times, 

indicating that the level of Anhui's tourism industry has also 

received better growth, and although the rate of increase in 

2020 fluctuates, the level of development of the tourism 

industry is still holding a growth trend relative to that of 2011. 

Overall, the development of cultural industry in Anhui 

Province is faster than the tourism industry, the main reason 

is that the government departments in Anhui Province 

actively improve the national cultural soft power, pay 

attention to the development of the cultural industry to bring 

the effect, but also grasp the high-speed development of the 

tourism industry, especially in the "13th Five-Year Plan" 

"14th Five-Year Plan" period, Anhui Province focuses on the 

development of the tourism industry, especially in the "13th 

Five-Year Plan" period. During the period of "13th Five-Year 

Plan" and "14th Five-Year Plan", Anhui Province emphasises 

on supporting the integrated development of culture and 

tourism industry, which makes the culture industry and 

tourism industry get a large growth. 

From Figure 1, the development of cultural industry and 

tourism industry in Anhui Province is in the same direction 

and at different speeds, and the growth rate of cultural 

industry development is significantly faster than that of 

tourism industry, and the comprehensive development level 

of the two overlapped between 2015 and 2016. During the 

period from 2011 to 2015, the development level of Anhui 

tourism industry is obviously higher than the development 

level of culture industry, and this period is also a key period 

for the development of tourism industry in Anhui Province, 

and the development of culture industry obviously exceeds 

the tourism industry after 2016, but the trend of the increase 

in the comprehensive development level of culture industry 

and tourism industry after 2016 shows a tiny gap, and the 

development level of the two show a the same speed trend, 

which also helps the coordinated development of the two. 

5.2. Coupled Coordination Analysis 

According to the above cultural industry and tourism 

industry coupling degree and coupling coordination degree 

model formula, using Anhui 2011-2020 cultural and tourism 

industry related data, indicators, firstly calculate the 

comprehensive development level value and standardised 

value, and in turn substitute into the coupling coordination 

degree model formula, respectively, the overall cultural 

industry in Anhui Province and the tourism industry coupling 

value M, the total comprehensive level value L, the value of 

the coupling coordination degree D, data analysis results are 

shown in Table 5. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

256 

Table 5. Coupling status of cultural industry and tourism industry in Anhui Province 

Year 

Cultural 

Industries 

Measurement 

index 

Tourism 

Industry 

Measurement 

Index 

Coupling 

degree 

Degree of 

coupling 

coordination 

Coupling 

Coordination Level 

Culture and Tourism 

Synchronisation of 

integration and 

development 

2011 0.071234921 0.288083693 0.398681511 0.267631919 Moderate disorder 
Cultural lag type (i.e. 

lacking in culture) 

2012 0.08702245 0.3329178 0.405318717 0.291727307 Moderate disorder 
Cultural lag type (i.e. 

lacking in culture) 

2013 0.174095264 0.346420978 0.471803637 0.35041508 Mild disorder 
Cultural lag type (i.e. 

lacking in culture) 

2014 0.210974271 0.409189721 0.473773275 0.383286528 Mild disorder 
Cultural lag type (i.e. 

lacking in culture) 

2015 0.380732678 0.580579506 0.489076145 0.484847841 
Proximity 

coordination 

Cultural lag type (i.e. 

lacking in culture) 

2016 0.463640051 0.394371669 0.498367952 0.462388118 
Proximity 

coordination 
Tourism lag type 

2017 0.621492888 0.514781725 0.497790195 0.531801825 Sue for coordination Tourism lag type 

2018 0.690904009 0.625954614 0.499391478 0.573423044 Sue for coordination Tourism lag type 

2019 0.878080864 0.687623722 0.496286953 0.623313227 Primary coordination Tourism lag type 

2020 0.548991922 0.192025685 0.438161396 0.402917677 Primary coordination Tourism lag type 

The numerical value of the measurement indexes of 

cultural industry and tourism industry indicates whether they 

are synchronised in the process of integration and 

development, and the smaller value indicates that their 

development is lagging behind that of the larger value, and 

they are unable to achieve synchronous development with the 

other industry. The coupling coordination degree of culture 

industry and tourism industry reflects the level of integration 

of the two, and the larger the value of the coupling 

coordination degree, the higher the level of integration of 

culture and tourism industry. 

It is learnt from Table 5 that the coupling degree C of 

cultural industry and tourism industry in Anhui Province as a 

whole has developed to the level of 0.49, which is in the stage 

of friction, indicating that the development of the two can 

interact and influence each other. Combined with the coupling 

coordination degree level interval division, overall, the 

coupling coordination degree of cultural industry and tourism 

industry in Anhui Province from 2011 to 2020 rose steadily, 

from 0.26 in 2011 to 0.62 in 2019, an increase of nearly two 

times, and the coupling coordination degree of 0.40 in 2020, 

fluctuating, but the degree of fluctuation due to 

epidemiological reasons. largely acceptable; in terms of 

specific stages, it is at a moderate level of dissonance in 2011-

2012, reaches a mild level of dissonance in 2013 and 

continues until 2014, reaches a near coupling coordination 

level in 2015-2016, reaches a Barely coupled coordination 

level, and in 2019, it even reached the primary coordination 

state, indicating that the level of coordinated development of 

cultural industry and tourism industry in Anhui Province is 

getting higher and higher, and the specific development trend 

is shown by Figure 2 and Figure 3. 

 
Figure 2. Coupling degree of cultural tourism industry in Anhui Province 

 



 

257 

 
Figure 3. Coupling and coordination degree of cultural tourism industry in Anhui Province 

5.3. Gray Correlation Analysis of Culture and 
Tourism Industry 

When exploring the interaction between the cultural 

industry and the tourism industry, the correlation between the 

indicators within the system cannot be ignored. Given that the 

development of the industry is influenced by multiple factors, 

which are extensive and complex, and the contribution of 

different levels of industrial elements to the overall 

development is significantly different, leading to the 

difference in the effectiveness of the influencing factors. At 

the same time, relying solely on the analysis of coupling 

coordination degree is difficult to comprehensively capture 

the intrinsic connection between the elements within the 

industrial system, and it is also impossible to deeply reveal 

how a single industrial element acts independently on the 

coordinated development law of the whole industrial system. 

Therefore, in order to more accurately assess and understand 

the specific contribution of individual indicators to the 

coupling coordination degree of the cultural industry and the 

tourism industry in the process of their integration, it is 

necessary to carry out an in-depth analysis to clearly identify 

the intrinsic connection between the indicators within each 

industrial system and the coupling coordination degree of 

culture and tourism. This study aims to reflect, through 

quantifying the correlation between the indicators, how the 

elements of individual industrial systems promote or 

constrain the coordination between the two industries of 

culture and tourism, so as to provide a scientific basis for 

realizing a more efficient and sustainable integrated 

development of culture and tourism. 

(1) Taking the cultural industry subsystem as the mother 

sequence 

Taking the cultural economic benefits, the number of 

cultural institutions and the cultural market scale as the 

mother sequence, respectively, exploring the relationship 

between the tourism economic benefits, the number of 

tourism institutions and the tourism market scale and the 

mother sequence, and obtaining the correlation degree 

through the grey correlation analysis as shown in Fig. 4. 

 
Figure 4. Degree of correlation with the cultural industry subsystem as the parent series

From Figure 4, it can be seen that the tourism economic 

benefits have the highest degree of correlation with the 

cultural market size, the number of tourism institutions has 

the highest degree of correlation with the number of cultural 

institutions, and the tourism market size has the highest 

degree of correlation with the cultural economic benefits. The 

specific performance is that the expansion of tourism market 

scale can effectively increase the cultural industry benefits, 

the increase of tourism economic income has a certain 

influence on the expansion of the cultural market scale, and 

the resources of tourism scenic spots, tourism enterprise 

resources, etc. have a certain correlation to the increase of the 

number of cultural industry institutions. 

(2) Take the tourism industry subsystem as the mother 

sequence 

 



 

258 

 
Figure 5. Correlation with tourism industry subsystem as parent series

As can be seen from Figure 5, the correlation between 

cultural economic benefits and tourism market size is the 

highest, the correlation between the number of cultural 

institutions and the number of tourism institutions is the 

highest, and the correlation between cultural market size and 

tourism economic benefits is the highest. The reason for this 

is that the social influence of the cultural industry (the 

economic benefits brought by the flow of people in public 

libraries and the number of visits to museums) has a certain 

positive effect on promoting the construction of tourism 

venues and tourism-related transportation (infrastructure 

construction has a certain positive effect on market 

agglomeration); the construction of cultural venues and 

humanities resources may accelerate the construction of 

tourism scenic spots and tourism enterprises; and the 

resources of the cultural industry have a corresponding effect 

on the development of the tourism economy also has a 

corresponding positive effect. 

6. Conclusions and Policy 
Recommendations 

6.1. Conclude  

This paper quantitatively analyzes the development of 

cultural industry and tourism industry in Anhui Province, 

measures the development level of cultural and tourism 

industry in Anhui Province based on the entropy value 

method, and evaluates the degree of coupling and coupling 

coordination between the development of cultural industry 

and tourism industry as well as the degree of correlation 

within the two systems of cultural industry and tourism 

industry by combining the entropy value method and the 

coupling coordination model and the grey correlation analysis, 

and draws the following conclusions: (1) The growth rate of 

cultural industry in Anhui Province is higher than that of 

tourism industry. The growth rate of culture industry is higher 

than that of tourism industry, and it has changed from the 

lagging development of culture industry in 2011-2015 to the 

lagging development of tourism industry since 2015. The 

development of the cultural industry is due to the fact that 

Anhui Province has repeatedly issued relevant cultural 

propaganda documents and strongly supported the 

development of the cultural industry, which should continue 

to deeply excavate the connotation of Anhui culture and 

reflect the uniqueness of the culture of Anhui Province; (2) 

the culture and tourism industry in Anhui Province is in a state 

of primary coupling and coordinated development, and the 

degree of coupling and coordination reaches the standard of 

primary coordination in 2019, and then due to the impact of 

the epidemic in 2020, the degree of coupling of the two has 

declined, in which the Tourism industry development lags 

behind, and the mismatch between the development of the 

cultural industry, limiting the coupling coordination degree, 

increase tourism investment, strengthen infrastructure 

construction and improve the service system, promote the 

comprehensive development of the tourism industry so as to 

realize the synergistic effect of the two industries. (3) culture 

and tourism industry each single indicator on the two 

coupling coordination degree has different contributions, 

individual industry system elements can promote or constrain 

the coordination between culture and tourism two major 

industries, can be more efficient, sustainable cultural tourism 

integration and development to provide a scientific basis. 

6.2. Policy Recommendations 

From the above research results, it can be seen that the 

coupling and coordination of culture and tourism industry in 

Anhui Province needs to be improved, and the quality of 

culture and tourism integration needs to be improved. In order 

to promote the development of deep integration of culture and 

tourism industry in Anhui Province, this paper puts forward 

the following suggestions for reference. 

(1) Adhere to the integrated development and enrich the 

supply of cultural tourism products. Dig deep into the cultural 

connotation of tourism resources, innovation to create 

competitive and influential landscape and line products, 

appropriate development of art museums, cultural centers, 

science and technology museums, museums and other 

existing cultural venues and cultural facilities, and add the 

characteristics of tourism elements, research and 

development of new tourism products. Implementing the 

strategic model of "culture and tourism +", promoting the 

integrated development of "culture and tourism + recreation", 

"culture and tourism + specialties", "culture and tourism + 

sports" and so on. "And other integrated development, to 

realize the cross-border transformation and upgrading of the 

culture and tourism industry, and promote the quality and 

expansion of consumption in the culture and tourism industry. 

Integrate wetlands, hot springs, forests, special cultural towns, 

traditional Chinese medicine and other recreational tourism 

resources in Anhui province, vigorously cultivate provincial 

and national recreational tourism demonstration bases, and 

create a recreational tourism + medical care + health as one 

of the recreational tourism industry clusters; create a 



 

259 

"recreational tourism + specialties" industry clusters in a 

piece of the area, and make use of the Huangshan Maofeng, 

WUWEI plate duck, HUAYUAN Pomegranate, Wouwei 

duck, Huaiyuan pomegranate, Taiping Monkey Kui, 

Huaining cake, Tongling sugar and other cultural specialties, 

vigorously develop the production of specialties, specialties, 

sightseeing, leisure and vacation, participate in the experience 

of the creative specialties in the exhibition; the 

implementation of sports tourism boutique demonstration 

project, Anhui Qianshan (sports + culture + tourism 

skateboarding event) as a model pioneer, so that the sports 

events for tourism development to bring new growth points, 

for the whole region tourism to add color, to create a number 

of influential sports tourism. Make every effort to create a 

number of influential sports tourism boutique routes, high-

quality events as well as national sports tourism 

demonstration bases. 

(2) Playing up comparative advantages and improving the 

market value of cultural and tourism products. According to 

the cultural industry and tourism industry in anhui province 

empirical analysis can be seen, anhui province culture and 

tourism industry coupled with the degree of coordinated 

development there is a large imbalance; in order to make the 

cultural industry and tourism industry in anhui province 

synchronous development, high quality and coordination, we 

should adhere to the market demand oriented. Focus on 

creating the pen, ink, paper and inkstone as the representative 

of the emblem of the famous products, play pen, ink, paper 

and inkstone as the representative of the unique culture and 

tourism products in anhui market value, in order to "shape the 

brand" as a means to drive the development of the region; and 

cities and cities, districts and districts need to strengthen the 

culture and tourism industry development of high-quality 

coordination, exchanges and collaboration, through the 

excavation of the unique outstanding cultural and tourism 

industry. Resources, such as Mount Huangshan, Mount 

Tianzhu and Mount Langya can be taken "order training + on-

site immersion red cultural experience" tourism project, in 

order to deepen the unique connotation of cultural and 

tourism products, dissemination of the characteristics of the 

red cultural resources, and further improve the market value 

of Anhui culture and tourism boutique product market value 

and its tourists' consumption demand. 

(3) Strengthen publicity and promotion, enhance the brand 

effect of culture and tourism. Set up the characteristic tourism 

brand image of Anhui Province, introduce tourism slogans 

and unified logo of tourism products, and build a detailed 

complete image recognition system for the whole region 

tourism destination. Insist on shaping tourism with culture 

and manifesting culture with tourism, promote the deep 

integration and development of culture and tourism, 

accelerate the high-quality development of the culture and 

tourism industry, improve the supply of high-quality culture 

and tourism products, enhance the brand of Anhui culture and 

tourism, and strive to create a national cultural night tourism 

consumption cluster. On the social platform, on the one hand, 

focus on the establishment of new media platforms such as 

microblogging, Jittery, WeChat, Xiaohongshu and other 

domestic marketing matrix, set up anhui culture and tourism 

account; on the other hand, the establishment of overseas 

marketing matrix mainly based on Facebook, Instagram, 

YouTube, to promote the "beautiful anhui" overseas 

marketing action, elaborate overseas communication matrix. 

On the other hand, it establishes an overseas marketing matrix 

mainly based on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, 

promotes the overseas marketing action of "Beautiful Anhui", 

carefully creates an overseas communication matrix, and 

builds a network precise marketing system. We will publicize 

Anhui culture, food and beautiful scenery, carry out bundled 

marketing, make Anhui poetry, Anhui books, Anhui paintings, 

Anhui tea and Anhui opera famous at home and abroad, and 

hold the Anhui International Culture and Tourism Festival in 

high quality; jointly launch market-oriented boutique tourism 

routes and brands in the Yangtze River Delta with Shanghai, 

Suzhou and Zhejiang; and make use of "Beautiful China" and 

"Beautiful China" to promote the "Beautiful Anhui" overseas 

marketing action. "Beautiful China" and other promotional 

platforms, deepen cultural and tourism exchanges and 

cooperation between Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan; around 

the whole region of Anhui Province tourism, the integration 

of Anhui municipal resources, planning Anhui's overall 

marketing program, the implementation of the integration of 

the provincial region to promote, carry out the "Greater 

Huangshan" (South Anhui) global promotion, bring tourists 

in, bring Anhui culture and tourism to the region, and promote 

the culture and tourism of Anhui. Introduce tourists to the city, 

spread the reputation of Anhui culture and tourism, and 

expand the market of tourists in and out of the province. 

(4) Enhance the level of cultural and tourism services and 

cultivate new cultural and tourism talents. Service quality is 

the intrinsic demand of culture and tourism service industry, 

which directly affects the actual experience of the majority of 

culture and tourism consumers, and the quality service can 

enhance the satisfaction degree of tourists to the tourism 

destination; culture and tourism talents are the important 

support to enhance the service quality. Due to economic 

reasons, Anhui Province, there are a large number of cultural 

and tourism industry high-quality talent outflow problem, 

which leads to the talent reserves and structure cannot meet 

the demand of Anhui cultural and tourism integration 

development. Anhui province should make full use of the 

opportunities brought by the development of culture and 

tourism industry, accelerate the cultivation of new culture and 

tourism science and technology talents, and give full play to 

the resource advantages of universities and high-tech 

enterprises. Based on this, the development of culture and 

tourism industry to provide high-level talent support, so that 

the advantages of these college and university talents become 

a strong backup force for the development of culture and 

tourism industry in Anhui Province. At the same time, we 

should vigorously promote the development of vocational 

education in culture and tourism, actively promote the 

integration of industry and education, strengthen the 

cooperation between schools and enterprises, cultivate multi-

talented talents suitable for the requirements of the integrated 

development of culture and tourism in Anhui Province, and 

strengthen the training of service skills and management 

ability of employees engaged in the culture and tourism 

industry in Anhui Province. In addition, it should also relax 

the policy of introducing tourism talents, and more vividly 

publicize the "Anhui Answer Sheet", "Anhui Main Stage" and 

"Anhui Culture". 

(5) Increase policy support, help the development of 

culture and tourism industry. The integrated development of 

culture and tourism industry in Anhui relies to a large extent 

on the guidance and support of the government. The 

government supports the development of culture and tourism 

industry by clarifying industrial development goals and 



 

260 

solving problems in the development process. The 

government should pay great attention to the development of 

the tourism industry and the cultural industry, put forward the 

enhanced strategic goal of establishing a strong tourism 

province in Anhui Province, and formulate relevant policies 

and measures to support the development of new cultural and 

tourism industries and new industries, increase the financial 

support for the cultural and tourism industries, take tourism 

as an important pillar industry of the province's economy, 

strengthen the integration and planning of key cultural and 

tourism resources, and continue to push forward the 

development of the province's tourism industry. 

Acknowledgements 

This work is supported by Anhui Provincial Department of 

Culture and Tourism Key Project “Countermeasures Research 

on Promoting the Quality and Expansion of Anhui Culture 

and Tourism Consumption” (WL2023ZD06). 

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