Incorporating High-Speed Rail Development Scenario for Tourism Land Use Simulation: A Case Study of Xinxing County, China

High-speed rail (HSR) has been proven to drive the development of regional tourism. However, few studies paid attention to the impact of HSR on future tourism land use. In this study, points of interest (POI) were used to obtain the locations and types of tourism facilities, and high-resolution remote sensing images helped us determine the spatial extents of the tourism facilities, so that tourism land could be identified. A system dynamics (SD) model was coupled with the patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model to simulate future tourism land by considering two scenarios, including HSR-led development (HRD) and the historical development pattern (HD) scenario. The SD model was employed to project the amount of tourism land and determine the HSR effects via empirical analysis. The PLUS model was applied to simulate the spatial distribution of tourism land and model the HSR effect by adopting a planned tourism area as the development area. The study area is Xinxing County in Guangdong Province, China, a county dominated by rural tourism, with the HSR expected to open in 2025. The results revealed that the SD-PLUS model has great advantages in simulating tourism land use change, and the HRD scenario leads to major changes in the sources of tourism land growth. This research provides new insights for policymakers on making countermeasures for the sustainability of tourism and rural revitalization at the county level.