Research on the Path of High-Quality Development of Rural Tourism Empowered by Digital Economy

The digital economy is a part of the current industrial reform that should not be ignored. Moreover, rural tourism is an important way to realize rural revitalization and common prosperity, and the correlation and interaction between the two are crucial to rural development. In this paper, we explore the interactive influence between the two, use the entropy value method, kernel density function, global spatial autocorrelation analysis, and other measurement methods to measure the comprehensive development level of the two, and accordingly establish the coupling and coordination model for the high-quality development of digital economy and rural tourism. The spatiotemporal characterization of the high-quality development of the digital economy and rural tourism in 30 provinces in China is carried out, and the coupled and coordinated development of the digital economy and rural tourism in 16 cities and towns in Yunnan Province is explored as an example, according to which suggestions for the corresponding development paths are put forward. The digital economy development index of China's seven major geographic regions during the five years of 2019-2023 is the highest in South China (0.473) and the lowest in Northwest China (0.219). Southwest China (0.518) has the highest rural tourism high-quality development index value, while Northwest China (0.386) has the lowest value. The degree of coupling and coordination of digital economy and rural tourism high-quality development in Yunnan Province increased by 0.0903 during the 5 years. The coupling and coordination of digital economy and rural tourism high-quality development in Yunnan Province in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020 Moran index was -0.0885, 0.0916, 0.1527, 0.1729, with the Z-value showing an increasing trend and the P-value showing a decreasing Trend. The coordination between the digital economy and rural tourism development in Yunnan Province has improved. © 2024 Liangping Li et al., published by Sciendo.