Abstract
China’s inbound tourism grew very slowly in recent years. This study modelled China’s inbound tourism based on a gravity model with province-level inbound tourist arrivals data from 13 countries of origin between 2010 and 2016. It was found that air pollution in tourist destinations and origin regions both had significant negative impacts on China’s inbound tourism. On average, if the concentration of particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less (PM 2.5 ) in China and foreign countries increased by 1 μ g/m 3 , inbound tourist arrivals would decline by approximately 1.7% and 3.8%, respectively. The effect of pollution in destination regions is explained by the importance of clean air as a favored characteristic of tourist attractions. The effect of pollution in tourist origin countries is explained by more awareness of and concern about air pollution by potential tourists if they live in more polluted countries. Further analysis showed that the impact of air pollution in destination regions was larger for tourists coming from more polluted and Asian countries, and visiting less polluted and more popular destinations. This study has a clear policy implication: improving air quality can be considered as a straightforward and effective way to promote inbound tourism in China. If air quality in China can be substantially improved in the future, inbound tourist arrivals have the potential to rise by at least tens of millions of person-times.
Highlights
Every year, numerous travelers from all over the world visit China for its beautiful scenery, renowned world heritage sites, and mysterious oriental culture
The coefficient implies that, if PM2.5 concentration rose by 1 μg/m3, inbound tourism arrivals would decline by 1.7%
According to the estimation results, if PM2.5 concentration in China rose by 1 μg/m3, inbound tourist arrivals would decline by approximately 1.7%
Summary
Numerous travelers from all over the world visit China for its beautiful scenery, renowned world heritage sites, and mysterious oriental culture. According to a report released by China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism [2], in 2018, the tourism sector’s total contribution to China’s gross domestic product (GDP) was 9940 billion CNY, accounting for 11.0% of GDP. The tourism sector contributed roughly 28.3 million jobs directly and 51.7 million jobs indirectly. These two numbers together accounted for 10.3% of total employment in China. The World Travel and Tourism Council forecasted that in 2028 the total economic contribution of tourism in China could reach 18,462 billion CNY, as much as 12.9% of GDP. The contribution to job creation was forecasted to be 116.5 million in total, as much as 14.7% of total employment in the coming decade [3]
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