Purpose/SignificanceThe paper aims to determine the role and potential of Xinjiang's tourism in regional coordinated development.

Method/ProcessIt firstly measures and calculates the economic disparity and tourism economic disparity in different parts of Xinjiang. Then, it uses the "tourism balance index" and set pair analysis to further evaluate the effect of balancing regional economic disparity in Xinjiang's tourism. Finally, it analyzesthe potential of tourism resources in all parts of Xinjiang in order to further clarify the potential of tourism development in Xinjiang, especially in backward areas.

Result/ConclusionThe results show that: 1)The economic disparity between different regions in Xinjiang is prominent, and there is a risk of regional non-coordinated development.2) The tourism economy has played a balanced role in the coordinated development of Xinjiang, but there are still great potential to be explore. 3) The potential of tourism resources in Xinjiang does not correspond to the economic pattern completely, but fully exploring the potential of tourism resources and developing tourism actively, especially international tourism, will help the economic development of Kashgarand the backward regions around, and help Yili, Tacheng, Aksu, Altay, Turpan and other medium-sized areas to narrow the gap with developed areas. Therefore, the future development of tourism will contribute to the coordinated development of Xinjiang Region.