Study On The Tourism Efficiency Of Resource-exhausted Cities

The rise of resource-based cities is mainly based on the development of resource-based enterprises which mine and process resources. Due to the intensification of exploitation and the development of a single model, many cities which rely on resource have transformed into the depletion phase, with increasing prominent problems such as economic downturn, employment difficulties, and the deterioration of ecological environment. As an alternative, tourism has been chosen and used by many cities depending on resource for their sustainable development, presenting the function of ecological protection, landscaping and employment sources, to name a few.Due to differences among the resource-exhausted cities, such as the location and tourism resources, so not of all resource-exhausted cities are suitable for the development of tourism. On the basis of domestic and foreign research on tourism in the resource-exhausted cities, this thesis carries on an empirical analysis of the resource-exhausted cities from the perspective of efficiency and makes a quantitative evaluation on tourism suitability. Based on panel data from the year2001to2010, the author makes use of the DEA model to analyze23prefecture-level resource-exhausted cities and13provinces from their overall efficiency, technical efficiency and scale efficiency. Moreover, Malmquist Index is applied to analyze tourism efficiency of23prefecture-level cities. Statistical results show that tourism efficiency of61%cities is low. There are obvious differences in three regions of China, where the tourism efficiency of the Eastern area is the highest, the Western medium and the Central the lowest. Pure technical efficiency of23cities is higher, but the economic scale is in the increasing stage. It shows that insufficient scale of tourism development is the constraint to further tourism development of resource-exhausted cities. Technological progress, technical efficiency and scale efficiency are important driving forces to enhance total factor productivity of tourism. Compared to technical efficiency and scale efficiency, technological progress is the greatest contribution. According to the level of tourism development of the provinces the cities lie, tourism development of the latter has been divided into four different types. Based on the actual situation of different cities, the development proposals are suggested and a reference is provided for the transformation of resource-exhausted cities and the development of tourism.