Abstract
To examine whether tourism can effectively stimulate economic growth following a disaster shock, we apply a panel threshold regression technique to test the threshold effect of tourism development on economic growth of the 36 Wenchuan earthquake-affected counties in 2008–2016. The empirical results using the panel fixed-effects model show that tourism significantly contributes to economic growth, supporting the validity of the tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH) for the disaster-affected destinations. The results of the panel threshold regression model also indicate a threshold effect of tourism development on economic growth, implying that counties with different conditions of tourism specialization and industrial structure experience different impacts on the tourism-growth nexus. Specifically, the estimated coefficients of tourism on economic growth decrease with the levels of tourism specialization and industrial structure exceeding the threshold value. Based on the Tourism Area Life Cycle theory (TALC), we further divide the 36 disaster-stricken counties into six types based on the evolution of tourism specialization: Exploration-stage type, involvement-stage type, transition-stage type, development-stage type, consolidation-stage type, and stagnation-stage type. The empirical findings and managerial implications discussed are generally applicable to policymakers seeking new ways to invigorate the economy in other disaster-affected destinations.
Highlights
IntroductionA large number of disasters, ranging from natural disasters (e.g., floods, hurricane storms, volcanoes, tsunami and earthquakes) to man-made hazards (e.g., financial crises, wars, and terrorist attacks), have caused severe destruction to facilities, economies and ecological environments of the disaster-hit destinations [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
Over the past years, a large number of disasters, ranging from natural disasters to man-made hazards, have caused severe destruction to facilities, economies and ecological environments of the disaster-hit destinations [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
As stated in the introduction, this study empirically focuses on the effect of tourism on economic growth based on the prevailing tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH) by considering three aspects
Summary
A large number of disasters, ranging from natural disasters (e.g., floods, hurricane storms, volcanoes, tsunami and earthquakes) to man-made hazards (e.g., financial crises, wars, and terrorist attacks), have caused severe destruction to facilities, economies and ecological environments of the disaster-hit destinations [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The discussion on how to promote the local economic recovery following a disaster has attracted the attention of both policymakers and scholars worldwide [11,12]. For the disaster-hit destinations, an increasing number of policymakers consider tourism development to be a strategic engine for stimulating economic recovery [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24]. The lack of research is somewhat surprising, given the causal relationship between tourism development and economic growth following disaster shocks. The tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH) is mostly used to analyze the effect of tourism development on economic growth based on the country or region level. Scholars have recently extended the studies of TLGH to four main hypotheses: (1) Tourism-led growth hypothesis itself [21,25,26], (2) conservation hypothesis [21,25,26], (3) feedback hypothesis [21,27], and (4) neutrality hypothesis [21,25,28]
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