Spatiotemporal Evolution, Regional Differentiation, and National Day Air-Quality Patterns at China’s 5A Tourist Attractions, 2000–2024

<title>Abstract</title> <p>Long-term, place-specific air-quality evidence is needed to evaluate the environmental conditions experienced at major tourist destinations. This study examines a fixed 2019 sample of 258 national 5A tourist attractions in China and links their locations to daily 1-km PM2.5 estimates for 2000–2024. Distributional monitoring indicators are constructed from the annual shares of excellent, good, and polluted days; results are compared across six regions and during the 1–7 October National Day period. The national distribution changed sharply after the mid-2010s. By 2024, 86% of attractions had excellent air on more than 60% of days, 68% exceeded the 70% threshold, and 18% exceeded the 90% threshold. Only about 8% had polluted air on more than 10% of days, while the share exceeding 20% was approximately zero. Regional improvement was widespread but uneven: in 2024, the share exceeding the 90% excellent-day threshold ranged from about 8% in North China to 35% in Southwest China. National Day results also distinguished daily clean-air prevalence from seven-day stability; regional full-excellent shares ranged from about 7% to 92% in 2024. The study demonstrates the value of distribution-based indicators for environmental monitoring at tourist locations. The findings describe ambient patterns and do not identify causal contributions from tourism activity, emissions, transport, or meteorology.</p>