Spatial mismatch and driving mechanisms of development potential for integrated snow-related sports, culture, and tourism: Evidence from 23 mountainous counties in Zhejiang, China

ABSTRACT Under global warming and the southward expansion of snow-related tourism, evaluating development potential in southern mountainous regions requires attention to both artificial snowmaking suitability and tourism-support capacity. Taking Zhejiang's 23 mountainous counties as a case area, this study constructs a county-level framework for assessing the development potential of integrated snow-related sports, culture, and tourism from four dimensions: Natural Driving Force, Cultural-Tourism Pulling Force, Service Carrying Capacity, and Economic-Market Support. Wet-bulb-temperature-based indicators were used to represent artificial snowmaking conditions, and multi-source data were analyzed using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)–entropy combined weighting, weighted comprehensive evaluation, spatial autocorrelation analysis, the System Deviation Index (SDI), GeoDetector, and the obstacle degree model. The results show that development potential is clearly differentiated across counties but does not exhibit significant global spatial clustering. High-potential counties appear as localized nodes, and high composite potential does not necessarily imply internal subsystem coordination. Four development types were identified: structurally coordinated, market-driven, resource-driven, and multi-constrained. GeoDetector and obstacle diagnosis show that tourism resources, Ice-Snow Festival Activity, snowmaking continuity, snowmaking windows, sport-facility provision, leisure and catering support, accommodation capacity, and tourism-resource transformation are key factors shaping spatial differentiation and development constraints. These findings suggest that snow-related development in southern mountainous counties should move beyond a ski-resort-oriented model and strengthen the conversion from attraction into sports participation, service-supported consumption, market visibility, and climate-adaptive operations.