Measurement Of Green Development Level Of Tourism In China And Spatial Effect Analysis

With the progress of reform and opening up,the rapid economic growth has led to the deterioration of the ecological environment,and such an extensive development mode has become a serious issue that draws public attention;thus,it is imperative to implement the green sustainable development in economy.As a big tourism country,China’s tourism industry has great potential with low resource consumption and good comprehensive benefits Therefore,tourism should be capable of facilitating green development so as to promote the construction of ecological civilization.As far as academic research is concerned,in recent years,scholars pay more attention to the related research in green economy,but the green development of China’s global tourism industry is barely involved.Based on the above background,this paper evaluates the tourism green development level in 30 provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities)from 2009 to 2018,and analyzes the spatial effect of tourism green development index as well as its influencing factorsFirstly,this paper illustrates the current research status both domestically and internationally,defines the connotation of green tourism development,and analyzes the theoretical foundation through an overall analysis of relevant theories and empirical researches on tourism green development.Secondly,by using the method of social entropy and empirical analysis,the index weights is determined;so as to construct a tourism green development indicator system including four primary indicators as tourism resource endowment,tourism ecological environment,tourism economic development scale,and social support,and 27 secondary indicators.Based on the secondary indicators of tourism green development index system,this paper calculates the comprehensive index of China’s tourism green development,and comprehensively analyzes the regional differences and evolution trend of tourism green development in 30 provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government)in China.Thirdly,this paper studies the spatial effect of tourism green development index,and via spatial Durbin model(SDM),it also analyzes the direct effects and spillover effects of the factors influencing tourism green developmentThe final conclusion is as follows:1.The development of tourism resource endowment in China is relatively stable in the past ten years,and the western region possesses the best tourism resource endowment with its abundant tourism natural landscape.2.There is little difference in the ecol-environment index of tourism industry among different regions,and an overall upward trend has been presented in the past ten years with a distinction from 2016 to 2018.3.The scale of tourism economic development experienced a significant expansion trend in the past ten years;the eastern region has widened a cap with the central and western regions.4.According to the four subsystems,the development of social support is the most unbalanced indicator,and the seven regions above the average come from the eastern region,accompanied by a significant gap with other regions.5.Integrating the four subsystems,a comprehensive index of tourism green development has been realized.It is found that its value is on an overall upward trend;meanwhile,the value in eastern region is higher than the central and western regions,and the central as well as western regions present an ascending state with a small gap between each other.6.There is a positive spatial correlation in the green development index of China’s tourism industry.Most of the eastern regions present an“Aggregate Effect in-between high-index areas",while the central and western regions mainly show an“Aggregate Effect in-between low-index areas".7.Income level and environmental governance have a significant positive direct effect on the green development of local tourism;yet,even though the technological innovation contributes to improve the green development level of local tourism,it is undeniable that technological innovation and industrial structure appears a significant negative spatial spillover effectFinally,based on the summary of this study,this paper puts forward the corresponding countermeasures from both a national perspective as well as three economic aspects:as for the national perspective,it is indispensable to strengthen a regional cooperation,improve the level of scientific and technological innovation,and improve the public transport system;as for the eastern region,the protection of tourism ecological environment should be highly considered;with regards to the central and western regions,it is appropriate to concentrate on the expansion of tourism economic development scale.