Abstract: Taking an ongoing industry,tourism industry, as a studying object, this paper tried to find out the origin and structure of tourism development potentialities, then established the potentialities system and assessment model of tourism industry based on the substantial economics structure: demand and supply. At last, this paper assessed the space of tourism development with Chinese tourism development datal The results showed that, in the short run, the tourism industry has huge development potentialities and the demand potentialikies are smallerl So,the government and firms should nake the measures to push the increase of tourism demand. In a word, the studying method of potentialities according to the basic structure of economics should become the reference for other industriesc potentialities assessment.

Key words: tourism industry, tourism development potentialities assessment model, empirical analysis, China