Research on Route Selection and Layout of Sustainable Tourist Highways in World Natural Heritage Sites Based on the Dual Coordination Mechanism of Development and Protection—A Case Study of the Ring Mount Fanjing Tourist Highway

Under the background of highway ecological green construction and traffic-tourism integration, tourist highways in world natural heritage sites bear the dual responsibilities of heritage ecological protection and regional economic boosting, yet existing routes prioritize connectivity over ecological and economic values, damaging heritage integrity and failing to drive surrounding township development. This study aims to build a dual-coordinated route selection framework balancing ecological protection and economic development, taking Mount Fanjing as the case. Adopting literature research, field survey and spatial analysis, and grounding in road ecology, point-axis system and tourism space competition theories, it constructs a four-part framework covering township tourism potential evaluation, ecological suitability assessment, binary matrix model and route generation. Empirically, nine townships including Minxiao and Taiping are screened as core tourism service nodes, and the optimal layout of the ring Mount Fanjing tourist highway is determined via ecological suitability matching. The findings reveal the prominent contradiction between heritage protection and regional development in current heritage tourist highway construction, and the proposed dual coordination model effectively balances heritage conservation and local economic growth, providing a feasible planning reference for sustainable tourist highway layout in world natural heritage sites.