Analysis on the Evolution Characteristics of Rural Tourism Public Service System from the Perspective of Digitalization—Empirical Evidence from the Silk Road Economic Belt

The integration of digitalization with public tourism services has emerged as a new model for the development of the rural tourism public services. The Silk Road Economic Belt is a crucial area for the future development of the tourism industry. Exploring the coupling of the digitalization and the development trends of the rural tourism public services is significant for advancing rural tourism in this region. This study applies Complex Adaptive Systems theory and Synergy theory to the development of the digitization of rural tourism public services, clarifying the structure of the digitization of the rural tourism public service system. Based on this, a collaborative development evaluation system for the digitization of rural tourism public services is constructed, focusing on the Silk Road Economic Belt. By using the SMI-P evaluation model, ArcGIS spatial visualization, Gini coefficient, and kernel density methods, the collaborative development of the digitization of the rural tourism public service system was measured and analyzed in this paper. The findings reveal the following: (1) The collaborative development of the digitization of the rural tourism public service system in the Silk Road Economic Belt shows a gradual upward trend, yet the overall level of the collaboration is transitioning from a state of imbalance. (2) Compared to the Southwest, the Northwest exhibits a lower overall level of collaboration, with growing disparities in collaborative development indices among provinces, although there is a trend toward higher levels of aggregation. (3) The development of the rural tourism public services is trending toward a favorable state of multi-dimensional collaboration, characterized by significant regional features, including multi-polarization and unbalanced development. Finally, optimization paths for the digital development of the rural tourism public services were proposed in this study, which can provide guidance for improving the construction of the digitization of the rural tourism public service system and exploring clear development pathways.