Does Regional Tourism Benefit from the Official Quality Rating of Tourist Attractions? Evidence from China’s Top-grade Tourist Attraction Accreditations

ABSTRACT

China National Tourism Administration began to grade the quality of tourist attractions in 2001, which is used by tourist attractions to signal their tourism quality, attract tourists, and thus increase tourism revenue. However, few studies have examined the impact of official quality rating on the regional tourism economy. This paper uses China’s prefectural city panel data from 2000 to 2015 to evaluate the impact of the accreditation of top-grade tourist attractions on the regional tourism economy. Our empirical study with the two-way fixed effects panel data model finds that while top-grade quality ratings promote tourism revenue and tourist arrivals, the effect is heterogeneous: it decreases over time, has become negative since 2007, lasts less than four years, is more statistically significant for domestic tourism and is larger in less developed areas. The results suggest that Chinese tourism administrations should be aware of the costs that official accreditation have for regional tourism economies, as the market has become increasingly competitive.

摘要

中国国家旅游局于2001年开始对旅游景区进行评级, 从而被景区用于发送旅游质量信号, 吸引游客, 从而增加其旅游收入。但是, 鲜有研究估计该政府质量评级对区域旅游经济的影响。本文运用2000至2015年间中国地级市面板数据评估顶级旅游景区 (2007年以前为4A景区, 此后为5A景区) 评选对区域旅游经济的影响。基于双向固定效应面板数据模型的实证研究发现, 尽管顶级旅游景区评选促进了旅游收入和游客数量的增长, 但该效应存在显著的异质性。具体而言, 随着时间的推移, 该效应不断变弱, 2007年以后变为负; 此外, 该效应仅能持续不到四年, 而且对于国内旅游以及在欠发达地区更大。本文结果意味着, 在旅游行业高度市场化的情况下, 中国旅游管理当局应该重视政府质量评级的成本。

KEYWORDS:

• Quality rating
• tourist attractions
• tourism economy
• panel data

关键词:

• 质量评级
• 旅游景区
• 旅游经济
• 面板数据

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Kaini Wang, Jiaoru Chen, Jiajie Huang and Yuanyuan Jing, all at Southeast University for their excellent research assistance, and valuable comments from Dr. Jinshan Zhang at Beijing Union University and Dr. Zhengyuan Zhao at Southeast University.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This study is funded by the 2020 Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2242020K40204), and the 2017 Qing Lan Project in Jiangsu Colleges and Universities.Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2242020K40204];the 2017 Qing Lan Project in Jiangsu Colleges and Universities.

Notes on contributors

Yanyan Gao

Yanyan Gao is Associate Professor in School of Economics and Management at Southeast University, China. His research interests involve applied economics topics like tourism economics, urban-rural development, innovation as well as project or policy evaluation of public infrastructures (E-mail: [email protected]).

Wei Su

Wei Su is Associate Professor and Associate Dean in School of Hospitality Management at Nanjing Institute of Tourism and Hospitality, Nanjing, China. Her research fields are tourism development and hospitality management (E-mail: [email protected]).

Leizhen Zang

Leizhen Zang is Professor in the College of Humanities and Development Studies at China Agricultural University, Beijing, China. His research interests include public management and policies specific to the era of the Internet and information (E-mail: [email protected]).