A Research On The Relationship Between Tourism Development And Economic Growth In China And Its Regional Differences

With the implication of reform and opening policy, the economy including tourism has gained a rapid development. But the relationship between tourism development and economic growth (call RTDEG for short) is not quite clear. An overall and scientific way to measure RTDEG, and a good understanding of its differences and causes between regions, will benefit the tourism in a compressive way.Firstly, this paper describes the background and significance of researches on RTDEG and reviews the recent researches home and abroad. It analyzes the contents and methods, and summarizes the relevant concepts and theories, which is the foreshadowing for the following researches.Secondly, the paper analyzes the processe of tourism development in China. It makes an analysis of its present situation from the perspectives of its resource elements, industrial and market structure, and education training. It also makes a brief review of national economic development in recent years and a PEST analysis on the environment of tourism development.Thirdly, the paper studys RTDEG by using time series data and panel data, in order to reduce inaccuracy. Based on total tourism revenue of China (call TTR for short) and the gross domestic product (call GDP for short) from 1985 to 2009, the paper analyzes the whole correlation between tourism development and economic growth. It studys the cointegration and causality of the two time series with Eviews6.0, and obtains error correction model. Noticing the dynamic difference among the provinces, this paper analyzes the RTDEG of 31 provinces and cities by applying the panel data to construct a panel data model of provincial TTR and GDP. It uses Ward clustering method to identify differences of RTDEG in regional development and classifies the 31 provinces into three categories, and analyzes tourism development state of each province and factors causing the differences.In conclusion, based on previous overall studies on the RTDEG and regional differences, this paper puts forward policy recommendations both in the long and short-term, aiming at promoting positive interaction between tourism development and economic growth. In order to reduce the regional differences of the RTDEG, the paper puts forward countermeasures respectively to the three categories.