The low-carbon city initiative and urban inbound tourism economy: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis

Jiafeng Gu ()
Additional contact information
Jiafeng Gu: Peking University, Institute of Social Science Survey

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2025, vol. 27, issue 11, No 39, 26912 pages

Abstract: Abstract Although tourism is often treated as one of the crucial industries for the construction of low-carbon cities (LCCs), there is no systematic evidence on whether there is a causal relationship. This research aims to explore and empirically test the causal link between LCC initiatives and inbound tourism of cities using a spatial difference-in-differences approach with balanced panel data of 59 Chinese major tourism cities from 2000 to 2017. The results show that urban tourism by foreign tourists exhibits significant spatial spillover effects. Compared to non-LCCs, the number of foreign tourists on LCCs increased by 4.7 percentage points and the average length of stay of foreign tourists increased by 3.6 percentage points. The direct impact of the LCC initiative on foreign tourists was significant, while the indirect impact was insignificant. The findings of the study not only deepen the research on sustainable tourism behavior of inbound tourists, but also provide valuable references for cities to participate in the competition in the international tourism market through low-carbon development.

Keywords: Urban tourism; Foreign tourists; Low-carbon city; Spatial spillover; Spatial difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-024-04815-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:27:y:2025:i:11:d:10.1007_s10668-024-04815-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-024-04815-y

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().