PONE-D-19-27598

Coupling coordination analysis of environment, economy and tourism：A case study of China

PLOS ONE

Dear Pro. wang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Bing Xue, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

This is an interesting paper, however, some major revisions are required before it was considered for going to external review.

1. I think that the authors have not adequately described their analysis in this original manuscript, for example, how the authors obtained datasets, any parameters used, and please keep in mind that, if any existing datasets were used for testing, it should have enough details for another researcher to reproduce the findings. A data-source should be presented in the context or as a supp. file.

2. References are not sufficient. At least, please add some relevant references in the first Paragraph of the introduction section. And a literature review is suggested to be added.

3. The language should be improved.

4. Policy implications should be considered as a solid section before the conclusions.

5. Please try your best to concentrate your findings from the modelling analysis, and add some discussions by such as comparative analysis with the external outcomes from other scholars.

6. I'd like to see the revision.

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.]

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PONE-D-19-27598R1

Coupling coordination between environment, economy and tourism：A case study of China

PLOS ONE

Dear Pro. wang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Feb 01 2020 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter.

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). This letter should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Manuscript'.

Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Bing Xue, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This paper used a comprehensive evaluation index system to evaluate ecological environment, economy and tourism subsystems and then applied coupling degrees and coordination degrees to calculate the relationships between them. Overall, the topic of this research is interesting and draws readers great attention. However, it still suffers little drawbacks. I would like to offer my concerns, which I hope can help to improve the quality of the paper. They are as follows.

1. The introduction part is not sufficient. Especially, the contribution is unclear enough. Hence, the authors should rewrite it.

2. Table 1 needs to be improved. For Table 2,3, and 4, the authors had better convert them to figures in a bid to improve the readability.

3. Policy recommendations should be moved to the end. Besides, it should be rewritten based on the conclusions.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript adopted a coupling coordination model to analyze the relationship between ecological environment, economy and tourism in China’s provinces during 2003-2017. However, it could not be published in its current form.

First, the research contributions are not clear. A potential innovation in this manuscript is its consideration of using coupling model to analysis the relationship between environment, economy and tourism within China. previous papers have included this development and its application in understanding China’s coordination development between economy and tourism and environment. If there is no innovation in the method, what is your most important contribution?

Second, you can refer to some more professional research to standardize the expression, for instance, coupling coordination degree or coordination degree? Tourism is an integral part of the economy, thus, Is it feasible to use “coupling” to describe the relationship between tourism industry and economy.

Third, the manuscript contains statements that are too hard to understand. It's almost like the author(s) had run out of steam at this stage and as the reader, I must say that I felt relieved to have completed the marathon! Specific comments with regard to grammar, flow and basic expression are too numerous to mention. Assistance with writing skills and grammar is needed through an independent third party - someone who knows little about the technical content but can assist with these shortcomings. The paper falls short of being a professionally written management article.

Four, It needs a major rewrite and rethink to eliminate redundant material and unrelated debate and discussion. For example, the sentence in lines 28-30, page 1; the last sentence in 3.4, page 15, etc.

The results are not clearly presented, for example, especial spatial distribution pattern of coupling coordination development for the 31 provinces.

Some technical erros: “they have good representativeness, understanding, availability, integrity and dissemination”(lines 3-4, page 4), pay attention to “understanding”

“are negative indexes (the larger the better), the other indexes are all positive indicators (the smaller the better)”((lines 3-4, page 4), for positive indicators, It should be “the larger the better”

Section 3.4 contains statements that are just far too basic and obvious. Policy recommendations are not targeted, they should be given on the basis of your results specifically.

Reviewer #3: The paper under review studies coordinated development of the ecological environment, the economy and tourism of China from 2003 to 2017. It constructs the comprehensive evaluation index system and uses the coupling coordination model to study the coupling and development of the three subsystems.

1. Line 7 of the first Paragraph in Section 1: “The impact and pressure of this extensive economic development has (should be have) led to…”. There exists an inappropriate tense.

2. Line 1 of the second Paragraph in Section 1: “…, much literature has studied the interaction …”. There exists an inappropriate tense.

3. Lines 1, 2 & 3 of the last Paragraph in Section 1: “…, whether the ecological environment can be coordinated with economic and tourism development has become a problem that many scholars and government departments need to study.”. The narrative here should be improved.

4. The first Section of the paper does not significantly explain what contributions it has made. It is suggested that the main contributions of the paper be listed in the last Paragraph of Section 1.

5. The entropy weighting results of the three subsystems in Section 2.4 are not the focus of the paper. It is recommended to replace Table 1 with a concise language narrative.

6. The results in Sections 3.2 and 3.3 are relatively thorough, but the results expressed in tabular form are worse than the graphical representation. It is recommended to replace Tables 2, 3 and 4 with the corresponding graphical representation.

7. The conclusions of Section 4 are too much and too long. It is recommended to reduce the length and express the main conclusions of the paper in a clear and concise language.

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Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments to PONE-D-19-27598_R1.docx

Coupling coordination between environment, economy and tourism：A case study of China

PONE-D-19-27598R2

Dear Dr. wang,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

With kind regards,

Bing Xue, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In this paper, a comprehensive evaluation index system of the ecological environment, the economy and tourism is established, and the coupling degrees and coordination degrees of the three subsystems of 31 provinces in China from 2003 to 2017 are calculated. Overall, the authors have made further improvements accordingly, and I recommend its publication.

Reviewer #3: Thank you for the revisions on the manuscript. I appreciate the thoughtful responses to the reviewers’ comments. In particular, the replacement of tables with graphics makes the manuscript better, and the revised introduction and policy recommendations are more reasonable. Therefore, I suggest that this manuscript be accepted without further modification.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: No