Spatial heterogeneity and obstacles to tourism competitiveness in oasis-border counties: a case study of 20 counties around the Taklimakan Desert

This study evaluates tourism competitiveness across 20 county level units surrounding the Taklimakan Desert in southern Xinjiang using four dimensions: tourism economy, tourism resources, service facilities, and tourism governance. A hierarchical weighting approach combined AHP for primary and secondary criteria with entropy weighting for tertiary indicators, followed by an obstacle degree model. The results show that tourism economy contributes most to overall competitiveness, followed by tourism resources. Higher competitiveness is concentrated in the western oasis belt, while lower levels occur mainly in the desert hinterland and southeastern periphery. Four major constraints are identified: limited economic scale, inadequate transport connectivity, insufficient resource development, and weak governance. Based on a majority rule, the units are classified as economically vulnerable or mixed types dominated by facility, resource, governance, or economic constraints. These patterns correspond closely to local geographical conditions and development stages. The study shows that competitiveness in oasis desert transitional counties depends not only on resource quality but also on economic capacity, institutional support, and infrastructure, which jointly shape the conversion of resource endowments into competitive performance. This challenges resource centered assumptions and provides a contextualized understanding of tourism competitiveness in ecologically fragile and geographically peripheral regions.