| At present,tourism has become one of the fastest growing and most demanding industries in the world.According to the data released by the World Tourism Organization,tourism contributed nearly 10% of global GDP and created 10% of employment opportunities for the international community in 2017.Meanwhile,tourism has always been seen as a industry of “pollution-free and low energy consumption".However,with the rapid development of tourism,the impact of tourism on environment has become more and more unnegligible.The carbon emissions generated by Leisure activities,accommodation and catering have an increasingly negative impact on tourism destinations.The carbon dioxide emissions generated by tourism have now reached 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.Therefore,tourism shouldn’t be recognized as a green industry as people always regarded.Large-scale infrastructure constructions of tourism often lead to denser carbon emissions than many other industries.Thus,the important issue ahead that needs to be resolved is how to take effective measures to eliminate the negative impact of tourism on environment,and to continuously improve the output efficiency of tourism resources so as to promote green development of tourism with high quality.Based on these considerations,this paper applies green total factor productivity(GTFP),which is the most important tool in academic circles to study green growth of economy to the research of tourism,in order to measure the efficiency and quality of the development of tourism in China through empirical examinations on the GTFP of tourism in China,to fully understand the impact of tourism economy on ecological environment,and actively explore ways to upgrade the green development of China’s tourism.Firstly,this paper reviews the relevant literatures on GTFP and GTFP of tourism at home and abroad,and finds that the research on GTFP of tourism in China needs to be further improved and deepened in terms of both measurement methods and research contents.So this paper constructs the index of GTFP of tourism in China.Based on the standard system,the energy consumption and carbon emissions of tourism in China’s provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government)from 2000 to 2016 were estimated comprehensively.The mixed radial EBM model was used to calculate the GTFP of tourism in China with Malmquist-Luenberger(ML)index and Maxdea 7.0 software.In addition,this paper also innovatively uses the tourism life cycle theory to analyze and compare the differences and changing rules of the GTFP of regional tourism in China,and to explores whether there is a "Porter hypothesis" in the field of tourism in China.Secondly,this paper uses Arc GIS 10.3 software to analyze the Spatio-Temporal evolution process of the average cumulative relative GTFP of tourism in 30 provinces over the years,and uses exploratory spatial data analysis method to test the spatial correlation of the GTFP of tourism in China’s provinces.Then,based on the analysis of the mechanism on the factors affecting the GTFP of tourism in China,this paper constructs econometric model empirically examine the factors affecting the GTFP of tourism in China.Finally,based on the empirical analysis,this paper puts forward specific ways to upgrade the GTFP of tourism in China.Based on the above researches,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)From 2000 to 2016,the carbon emissions from tourism transportation in China accounted for 81.7% of the total carbon emissions of tourism,and most of the regions with high carbon emissions concentrated in eastern provinces of China;the energy consumption of tourism transportation in China accounted for 74.7% of the total energy consumption of tourism,and the proportion of energy consumption of tourism activities in the total energy consumption of tourism is increasing year by year,while the proportion of energy consumption of tourism accommodation is decreasing year by year.(2)The GTFP index of China’s tourism has risen for 17 years,with an average growth rate of 7.1%.The growth rate driven by technical efficiency(EC)is 1.2%.The growth rate contributed by technological progress is 7.3%.The average growth rate of the central and the western regions is higher than the national average growth rate,while the average growth rate of the eastern regions is below the national average growth rate.(3)Over the years,the total factor productivity(TFP)index of tourism without considering environmental factors is generally larger than the GTFP index of tourism with environmental factors taken into account;The GTFP in different stages of tourism development in China presents different changing rules and characteristics.In the "exploration stage",it is in a declining state,in the "participation stage",it is in a fluctuating and rising state,and in the "development stage",and it is in a declining first and rising after state as “U” curve.Accordingly,this paper asserts that the "Porter hypothesis" may exist at a local stage of tourism development.(4)The average cumulative relative GTFP of China’s tourism is relatively high in the northeast,moderate in the central and southeast,and low in the northwest,with local areas characterized by high and low adjacency.The GTFP of tourism in provinces has no obvious spatial correlation,and is basically independent of each other and is not affected by the adjacent regions.(5)The proportion of tertiary industry,urbanization rate and technology market transactions ratio of GDP can significantly and positively affect the GTFP of tourism in all regions of China.The ratio of tourism income to the number of visitors,energy consumption in per ten thousand of GDP,the proportion of government investment in pollution control in GDP as well as traffic density are negatively affected the GTFP of tourism in different regions,The regression results of the technological progress represented by independent innovation ability and the openness to the outside world are not significant.Taking the ratio of tourism income to the number of visitors and the proportion of government investment in pollution control in GDP as the two core variables to do threshold regression separately,the results show that both of their impact on GTFP of tourism have a "U" curve change on the left side.That is to say,the negative impacts of the two core variables on the GTFP of tourism gradually decrease with the increase of the two core variables.According to this,this paper speculates that China’s tourism may be in the first half of the "porter hypothesis" development stage,which shows that the level of GTFP of China’s tourism has declined under the environmental control,but this decline in productivity is gradually disappearing with the continuous advancement of technology,it will reach the "U" curve inflection point,and enter the second half of the "Porter Hypothesis" development stage(the right half of the "U" curve)finally.Based on the conclusions above,this paper proposes specific path to upgrade the GTFP of China’s tourism,such as green concept guidance,green policy promotion,green financial support,green management supervision,green industry integration,green system construction,green technological innovation and green project demonstration,global tourism concept popularized,green tourism demand guidance,and green education promotion nationally,etc. |
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