Study On The Impact Of The High-speed Rail Operation On The Regional Tourism Economy

Transport infrastructure is a crucial prerequisite for the development of regional tourism.As an important form of application and innovation of modern technology in the field of transportation,the high-speed rail has brought new opportunities and motivation to the development of regional tourism economy.The tourism economy is an important stimulus to promote national economic growth.With the rapid development of China’s economy,it is important to comfirm the dynamic law of high-speed rail operation affecting regional tourism economy in time,and to analyze its influence degree empirically.This is of great significance for the region to understand the tourism economic effect of high-speed rail and reasonably implement the management of tourism industry.Based on the existing literature and the theory of Economic Growth,New Economic Geography,Traffic Economic Belt and Tourism System,this paper analyzes and combs the internal mechanism of high-speed rail operation affecting regional tourism economy from the theoretical level.Next,using the panel data of 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2017,the difference-in-difference model（DID）is used to empirically analyze the overall impact of the high-speed rail on the regional tourism economy and the heterogeneity of tourism economy in different cities,and from the perspective of tourism supply to test the mechanism of high-speed rail operation to affect the regional tourism economy.The specific research conclusions are as follows:（1）The operation of high-speed rail has a significant positive impact on the regional tourism economy.The results show that,at a significance level of 1%,the operation of the highspeed rail will promote the total number of the tourists and income,the domestic tourists and income,and the inbound tourists and income separately.After eliminating the endogenous problems of the model and conducting multiple robustness tests,this core result has not changed substantially,indicating that the research conclusions are reliable.（2）The effect of high-speed rail on tourism economy of different types of cities is heterogeneous.The differences of urban location,scale,grade,tourism resource endowment,tourism public service quality,and highway/air traffic development make the high-speed rail have different effects on regional tourism economy.（3）The mechanism analysis shows that,based on the perspective of regional tourism supply,the three mechanisms of regional labor market,financial revenue and innovation environment play a part of intermediary role in the process of promoting regional tourism economic growth by high-speed rail.Based on the research conclusions of this paper,the following countermeasures and suggestions are put forward for how to promote the development of tourism economy in the era of high-speed rail: facing up to the high-speed rail tourism effect and strengthening the regional tourism cooperation;understanding the needs of the customer source market,and precising the product and service marketing;cultivating the characteristics of tourism products and enhancing the tourism supply quality;improving the public service system and the tourism infrastructure support.