Quality Accreditation to Tourist Attractions and the Development of Regional Tourism Economy: An Empirical Study From China

Abstract

To improve the tourism quality of tourist attractions, China National Tourism Administration provide quality accreditations to them, which is also used by tourist attractions to signal their quality and to attract tourists. However, how such accreditation influences regional tourism economy lacks empirical examination. 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. The difference-in-differences method finds a surprising result that the accreditation hinders prefectural tourism revenue. The adverse effect is not heterogeneous to China’s three regions or the abundance of tourism resource and is consistent with robustness checks. Our results suggest that Chinese tourism administrations should pay close attention to the costs of official accreditation to tourist attractions on regional tourism development.

Keywords: quality accreditation; tourist attractions; tourism economy; China; difference-in-differences

JEL Classification: L83; L88; L15; L53