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The role of the digital economy in tourism: mechanism, causality and geospatial spillover

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Abstract

The booming development of the digital economy is not only greatly affecting the establishment of a modernized industrial system but also contributing to tourism innovation and a new pattern of smart tourism. This study proposes a measurement system for the digital economy from the perspective of digital infrastructure, integrated industrial development and the environment on the basis of Chinese city-level data from 2011 to 2018. First, the empirical discussion indicates that the digital economy can accelerate the recovery of the tourism and travel market at a faster pace. Additionally, it can have an indirect effect on tourism development by influencing the employment structure, economic growth, the innovation level and educational progress. Furthermore, spatial econometric analysis reveals that tourism development exhibits spatial autocorrelation and spatial agglomeration. The influence of the digital economy shows a strong negative spatial spillover effect, which diminishes as the geographical threshold value increases. In addition, a difference-in-differences (DID) model and a spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model derived from the “Broadband China” policy are used to establish causality between the digital economy and tourism.

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Source: The Statistical Bulletin of China’s National Economic and Social Development from 2000 to 2020

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72321002) and the Joint Development Program of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education. The authors are also very grateful to the anonymous reviewers and Editor Prof. Dr. Joakim Westerlund for their insightful comments, which helped us improve the quality of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Haitao Wu, Yunxia Guo & Yu Hao

  2. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Haitao Wu, Yunxia Guo & Yu Hao

  3. Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing, 100081, China

    Yu Hao

  4. Collaborative Innovation Center of Electric Vehicles in Beijing, Beijing, 100081, China

    Yu Hao

  5. Yangtze Delta Region Academy, Beijing Institute of Technology, Jiaxing, 314001, China

    Yu Hao

  6. School of Applied Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Ruohan Zhong

  7. Center for Population and Development Studies, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Pinrui Guo

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Wu, H., Zhong, R., Guo, P. et al. The role of the digital economy in tourism: mechanism, causality and geospatial spillover. Empir Econ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-023-02526-3

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