Since the arrival of the twenty - first century, with the gradual establishment of our socialist market economy and the transition
of government functions, greater demands have been placed on plans and schemes for the development of regional tourism as an effective method of macro - regulation. Under the new system, conducting researches into the development of regional tourism is not only required by the government' s efforts to strengthen its macro - control of tourism, but also objectively demanded by the development of regional tourism economy under the new
market economy system. This article focuses on the transformation of regional development plans from planned economy to market economy. The authors conduct a detailed research on the functional transformation process of regional development plans between two different economy systems, with special emphasis on the basic planning principles and conceptions as well as on the overall planning framework. Finally, a new framework of regional development plans under the market economy system is presented on the basis of the previous analysis.