Spatiotemporal Patterns and Obstacle Factors of Environmental Quality for Elderly Sojourning in Guangxi, China

In the context of global mobility and aging societies, sojourning has emerged as an innovative retirement lifestyle, offering unique experiences for the elderly. This study develops a theoretical framework to assess the environmental quality for elderly sojourning, focusing on four dimensions: climatic and ecological environment, residential living environment, elderly care environment, and tourism industry environment. Using the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method, the article evaluates the environmental quality across 14 cities in Guangxi, China, from 2014 to 2022, and identify obstacle factors through an obstacle degree model. Results indicate that while the overall environmental quality remains relatively low, it shows a fluctuating upward trend. Cities such as Nanning, Guilin, and Liuzhou perform better but exhibit slow development. Disparities among cities have narrowed, suggesting significant potential for future growth. Improvements are observed in tourism and residential living environment, while the climatic and ecological environment and elderly care environment show inconsistent progress. Key obstacles include the number of cultural venues, domestic tourist visits, per capita green space, and high-level scenic spots. Most cities, except Guilin, face challenges in tourism and leisure, with some further constrained by inadequate medical and transportation infrastructure. This study provides actionable insights for optimizing elderly sojourning environment and informs policy development for sustainable aging societies.