Study On The Impact Mechanism Of 5A Scenic Spot Creation On The Regional Tourism Economy

Since the first batch of 5A scenic spots in China were assessed in 2007,they have been regarded as “ace players” among scenic spots and have become“golden signboards” for the development of local tourism due to their high rating,official certification and great influence.In the early development process,5A scenic spots were few in number and were mostly monopolistic tourism resources,so they played a leading role in the development of China’s tourism industry.Currently,5A scenic spots are widely distributed throughout the country and have been transformed from a scarce resource to a convenient resource,while the enthusiasm of local governments for the creation of 5A scenic spots has not receded.But can the creation of 5A scenic spots enhance the visibility of local destinations,and what are the effects of the creation of 5A scenic spots on regional tourism development,and what is the mechanism of influence of the creation of 5A scenic spots on regional tourism economic growth?To solve the above issues,this study adopts a quasi-natural experiment method to regress the panel data from 280 prefecture-level cities through the difference-in-differences model to assess the impact of 5A scenic spot creation on scenic spot online attention and regional tourism economy,and to identify its impact mechanism.The results show that:1.From the scenic spot scale,5A scenic spot creation has a significant contribution to scenic spot network attention and promotes scenic spot popularity;2.On a regional scale,the creation of 5A scenic spots can significantly contribute to the growth of the regional tourism economy;3.Regional per capita gross domestic product,regional tourism consumption capacity and regional higher education penetration rate are important influencing factors for regional tourism economic development;4.The creation of 5A scenic spots in prefecture-level cities of different types and regions have different impacts on regional tourism economy.Specifically,the economic impact effect of the creation of 5A scenic spots on non-tourist cities is stronger than that of tourist cities,and the impact on the tourism economy in the eastern,central and western regions of China is ranked as follows: central region > eastern region > western region;5.The analysis of the mechanism shows that the creation of 5A scenic spots has a positive impact on regional tourism economic growth through online attention,and shows differences depending on the type of city.The marginal contribution of this paper may be reflected in: 1.Using the difference-in-difference method to assess the impact of 5A scenic spot creation on scenic spot network attention and regional tourism economy development,the use of large sample data like prefecture-level cities and scientific method makes the results of this paper more convincing.2.Through robustness tests,parallel trend tests and mechanism analysis,this study identifies the intrinsic mechanism of the role of the creation of 5A scenic spots on the growth of the regional tourism economy,and then proposes targeted strategies for the creation of 5A scenic spots.3.The empirical findings of this paper confirm the actual driving effect of 5A scenic spots on the regional tourism economy,which not only becomes an empirical study to support the policy of creating 5A scenic spots,it also provides a reference for the future construction of 5A scenic spots and the growth of the regional tourism economy.