Eco-efficiency, eco-productivity and tourism growth in China: a non-convex metafrontier DEA-based decomposition model

Abstract

Understanding the effects of changes in the eco-efficiency and eco-productivity of the tourism industry on its growth will inform tourism policymaking. Based on a combination of the non-convex metafrontier model, data envelopment analysis, and structure decomposition analysis, this study develops a novel model to measure changes in the eco-efficiency and eco-productivity of China’s provincial tourism industries during 2005–2015, and then decomposes tourism growth into six components. Our findings indicate that China's tourism eco-efficiency had 19.3% potential for improvement, and showed distinct spatial characteristics. China’s tourism eco-productivity initially increased and then declined slightly due to the combined effects of changes in the eco-efficiency, technical gap, and eco-technology. Additionally, changes in eco-productivity exerted a promoting effect on tourism growth owing to an eco-technical change effect, with such promoting effect declining in the latter part of the sample period because of the growing differences in endogenous capabilities between provinces. Furthermore, among all the decomposition items, the eco-environmental overload effect is the largest driving force for China’s tourism growth, suggesting that promoting tourism growth at the cost of the eco-environmental burden is the theme of China’s tourism development during the sample period.

Keywords:

• Eco-efficiency
• eco-productivity
• tourism growth
• non-convex metafrontier DEA-based model
• structure decomposition analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71704125); China's Major University Research Project Funds from Sichuan University (No. SKQY201772); the Innovation Spark Project Funds from Sichuan University (No. 2018hhf-38); the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (No.SQ2019QZKK2004).

Notes on contributors

Jianping Zha

Jianping Zha is an associate professor in the School of Tourism, Sichuan University, China. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Management Science and Engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University. He has been a Post doctor in the field of cultural heritage and tourism exploration. His research interests include tourism linkage analysis, ecological economics and applied economics. He is the director of many research projects and has authored 36 scholarly papers published in high-reputation Chinese and International journals. He is also peer reviewer of many International journals.

Wenwen Yuan

Wenwen Yuan is a master candidate of tourism at Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. Her research interests include tourism growth in China, tourism geography and tourism economics.

Jiaquan Dai

Jiaquan Dai is a master candidate of tourism at Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. His research interests include social network and tourism economics.

Ting Tan

Ting Tan is a master candidate of tourism at Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. His research interests include tourism economics and efficiency evaluation.

Lamei He

Lamei He just obtained the Ph.D. degree of tourism management in the School of Tourism, Sichuan University, China in 2019. She has been a joint Ph.D. student in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality of Management Faculty, Bournemouth University, UK. Her research interests include tourism economics, ecological tourism, tourism growth and sustainable tourism. She focuses on the quantitative research and big data analysis. She has authored four scholarly papers published in high-reputation Chinese and International journals during her Ph.D. study period.