Does high-speed rail boost urban tourism economy in China?

ABSTRACT

The construction of high-speed rail (HSR) has made a substantial contribution to social development. However, further research is necessary on how to evaluate the impact of HSR services on the tourism economy. Based on regional panel data of 286 municipalities, we adopted propensity score matching and difference-in-difference methods to study the impact of HSR services on urban tourism economic between 2005 and 2015. The findings suggest that the attraction of HSR to inbound tourists measures 12% higher than the attraction of HSR to domestic tourists. Furthermore, HSR services have a significant influence on only inbound tourism revenues (11.2%). Our results provide authorities and policymakers with useful tools when planning the development of tourism in an HSR area.

KEYWORDS:

• High-speed rail
• tourism economy
• propensity score matching
• difference-in-difference analysis
• inbound tourists
• inbound tourism revenues

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This thesis is sponsored by “the discipline group of World-Class-Regional History & Borderland Studies of Sichuan University”.