Can The Integration Of Culture And Tourism Promote The Synergistic Development Of Cultural And Tourism Industries?

As emerging modern service industries,both the cultural industry and the tourism industry have great potential for development in economies around the world,and the two are both essentially different and inextricably linked.Promoting the synergistic development of the cultural and tourism industries is both a realistic trend in industrial development and a realistic demand for sustainable economic development.China’s cultural and tourism industries have been growing at a rapid pace in recent years,with cultural revenue and tourism output increasing,and the two industries are becoming important players in the restructuring of the industry.However,due to outdated technology and management systems,China’s cultural and tourism industries have a weak industrial base and insufficient supply of effective products to meet the growing demand for high-end cultural and tourism products in the consumer market.To achieve high-quality development of the cultural and tourism industries,it is not only necessary to improve service levels and strengthen management mechanisms,but also to promote joint innovation and synergistic development of tourism projects and cultural experiences in conjunction with unique local natural resources and cultural elements,driven by the convergence of industry chains and diversified profit models.The Chinese government has long noted the positive impact of cultural-tourism integration on the synergistic development of the cultural and tourism industries,with the former Ministry of Culture and the National Tourism Administration clearly stating in the Guidance on Promoting the Development of Combined Culture and Tourism issued in August 2009 that "culture is the soul of tourism,and tourism is an important carrier of culture".With the central government constantly proposing macro planning for the integration of culture and tourism,governments at all levels have issued policies and guidelines aimed at encouraging the deep integration of the cultural and tourism industries in their regions.As provincial policies on the integration of culture and tourism continue to advance,attention is being paid to what effect these policies are having and whether they are effectively promoting the deep integration and synergistic development of the cultural and tourism industries in the region.This paper explores the important role of the integration of culture and tourism policies in the synergistic development of the cultural and tourism industries in different provinces of China.On the theoretical side,it analyses the theoretical significance of the integration of culture and tourism on industrial development from the perspectives of both industrial mechanism and market environment,and explores the possible adverse effects of the integration of culture and tourism policies in the implementation process based on the factors affecting policy implementation,as well as why the policy effects show heterogeneity across regions.Empirically,this paper examines the impact of the integration of culture and tourism policies on the synergistic development of regional cultural and tourism industries in a policy assessment framework,using a panel data of 31 Chinese provinces from 2010-2018 as the entry point for 25 provinces to successively introduce the integration of culture and tourism policies.In terms of methodology,the paper treats the cultural and tourism integration policies introduced in each province as a quasi-natural experiment and uses a more cutting-edge multi-period difference-in-differences model to empirically test the theoretical framework of the paper;examines the possible impacts of cultural and tourism integration policies in the implementation process by introducing factors such as economic development and education level;and introduces regional dummy variables for provinces in eastern,central and western China into the model with cultural and tourism integration Finally,the paper examines the dynamic effects of the integration of culture and tourism policies using parallel trend tests and uses placebo tests to confirm the robustness of the paper’s findings.The main findings of this paper are:(1)The level of synergistic development of cultural and tourism industries in 31 Chinese provinces and cities shows a geographical pattern of low in the central region and high in the eastern and western regions,with Beijing’s level of synergistic development of cultural and tourism industries located at the highest in the country.(2)Cultural and tourism integration policies have effectively promoted the synergistic development of regional cultural and tourism industries,but the higher the level of economic development and the more mature the market,the weaker the promotion effect of cultural and tourism integration policies on the development of tourism industries and the stronger the promotion effect on the synergistic development of cultural industries and cultural and tourism industries.(3)There is significant regional heterogeneity in the effects of cultural and tourism integration policies in the 25 provinces,with the promotion effect of cultural and tourism integration policies on the development of the local cultural industry being more significant in the eastern provinces of China,and the promotion effect on the development of the local tourism industry being more significant in the central and western provinces,and there is no regional heterogeneity in the promotion effect of cultural and tourism integration policies on the synergistic development of the cultural and tourism industries in the 25 provinces.The marginal contributions of this paper are:firstly,it explains the impact of cultural and tourism integration policies on the development of regional cultural and tourism industries,and expands the theoretical boundaries of how economic development and infrastructure affect the effectiveness of cultural and tourism integration policies.Secondly,based on the research design and data characteristics,this paper adopts a more advanced multi-period difference-in-differences model to assess the policy effects of tourism policies and the intervention effects of other factors,and incorporates moderating effects in parallel trend tests and placebo tests to ensure the robustness of the findings and the continuity of this paper’s empirical research.Thirdly,this paper examines the intervention effects of different regional economic development,infrastructure and other factors on the policy effects of the integration of culture and tourism through empirical analysis,and quantifies the effects of these factors on policy effectiveness in the moderating effect analysis,ultimately highlighting the regional heterogeneity of the integration of culture and tourism policy effects in an attempt to enrich the empirical approach to tourism policy evaluation.