Coupling Relationship and Interactive Response between Intensive Land Use and Tourism Industry Development in China’s Major Tourist Cities

(1) Background: Exploring the interactive relationship between intensive land use (ILU) and tourism industry development (TID) is of vital significance to promote the high-quality and sustainable development of tourism and the urban economy. (2) Methods: This paper constructs an evaluation index system of ILU and TID, and comprehensively measures the coupling and interaction between ILU and TID in China’s 58 major tourist cities from 2004 to 2018 by using the entropy weight method, coupling coordination degree model, and panel vector autoregressive model. (3) Results: In terms of the coupling relationship, the coupling coordination degree of ILU and TID in China’s major tourist cities were optimized year by year, and the coupling coordination degree from 2004 to 2008 was less than 0.2, which is part of the serious imbalance recession stage. From 2009 to 2018, the coupling coordination degree was between 0.2 and 0.4, which is part of the moderate maladjustment recession stage. In terms of interactive response, ILU and TID formed a long-term interactive relationship, and the intensity effect of ILU on TID is significantly higher than that of TID on ILU. (4) Conclusions: There is a significant correlation and bidirectional process between ILU and TID, and they have an essential impact on the high-quality development of tourist cities.