Assessment of coupling coordination between tourism development and economic growth after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake: Beichuan, China

ABSTRACT

This paper establishes one comprehensive index system and investigates the coupling coordination between tourism development and economic growth of Beichuan County following the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, as well as examines the causal relationship. The results of the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) illustrate that the coordinating level of tourism development and economic growth increases in 2001–2017, with strong fluctuation in 2008. The causal results using unit root test, Cointegration test, and Grange causal test show that tourism can significantly promote economic growth in 2008–2017. The outcomes may be attributed to the disaster shock, macro-policy and government-led reconstruction mode. Lastly, the theoretical and practical implications for policymakers are provided.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism development
• economic growth
• relationship
• coupling coordination degree
• tourism-led growth hypothesis
• Wenchuan earthquake
• Beichuan County

Acknowledgements

Thanks are given to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their time spent handling and improving the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This paper was jointly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [40971297], National office of Philosophy and Social Science in 2017 [grant number 18FGL015], Sichuan University Cluster for Regional History and Frontier Studies [2018-0332], Innovation Spark Project of Sichuan University [grant number 2018hhs-57].