Examination and Forecast of Relationship among Tourism, Environment, and Economy: A Case Study in Shandong Province, China

Correctly understanding and handling the relationship of tourism industry, ecological environment, and regional economy is an important prerequisite and foundation for realizing regional ecological protection and high-quality development. Based on the entropy method and the coupling coordination model, this paper conducts quantitative research on the coupling coordination relationship and development law of tourism industry–ecological environment–regional economic (TEE) in various cities in Shandong Province. First, a coupling coordination evaluation system of TEE was constructed to evaluate the comprehensive development level of the three systems in each city in Shandong Province from 2010 to 2017; secondly, based on the coupling coordination model, the relationship among the three systems of each city was analyzed using spatial and temporal dimensions; finally, the gray GM (1, 1) model was used to predict the future coupling coordination degree of the three systems in Shandong Province. The research results show that: (1) the development of the economy and tourism industry of cities in Shandong Province is highly correlated, and the overall trend is increasing. The ecological environment mainly changes first, and then rises. (2) From the perspective of time, the changes in the coupling coordination degree of the three systems are mainly to maintain stability and increase fluctuations, and generally develop in the direction of benign coordination. From a spatial perspective, the coupling coordination degree of the three systems shows significant regional integrity and differences, showing a pattern of high in the east and low in the west. (3) In the next few years, the coupling coordination degree of the three systems will roughly continue the characteristics of changes from 2010 to 2017.