Abstract: While the “push” force in the “pushpull” theory explains why the tourists travel， the “pull” force explains why the tourists choose the destination instead of others. Factors concerning destination “attraction” constitute key variables for the direction， quantity and quality of a tourist flow. Based on the perspective of attractive power of tourist destination and full consideration of the spatial correlation effects， this paper chooses six key variables which affect the direction and quantity of a tourist flow， using 10 years of panel data from 2004 to 2013 of 31 province/cities/autonomous region， and identify the significance and impact of each variable. The results show that the geographical adjacency and space distance will have an impact on the distribution of tourist flows in each province， and the regional differences and destination market development potential can be measured in the dimension of tourism resources endowment， climate comfort， traffic conditions and so on， which can provide decisionmaking basis for tourist destination market development and tourist flow regulation.

Key words: tourism destination, tourist flow, market potential, spatial correlation effects, spatial panel GMM Model