Evolutionary logic, structural system and effectiveness evaluation of China's tourism policies

A comprehensive policy system is an important institutional guarantee to help improve the modern tourism system and accelerate the construction of a powerful tourism nation. This paper constructs a four-dimensional analysis framework of policy evolution, policy subjects, policy tools and policy effectiveness. Using content analysis method, social network analysis method and policy consistency index model (PMC), this paper systematically examines 884 national tourism policies from 1978 to 2020. The results show that: (1) Since the reform and opening up, the evolution of tourism policy has experienced an budding stage (1978-1991), a rapid development stage (1992-2011) and a comprehensive deepening stage (2012-2020). Slightly different from existing research, this study's policy sample better reflects the changes in the practical goals and development directions of China's tourism industry at various stages of development since the late 1970s, and expands them in the temporal dimension. (2) The formulation and issue of tourism policies are mainly independent release, with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT) being the main policy issuing department. (3) The policy tools present the structural unbalance state, which place emphasis on environmental policies but lack of supply policies. This phenomenon may be related to the timely adjustment of the goals of the tourism industry in different periods, as well as the changes in the environment of the tourism industry development. (4) The text validity of tourism policy is good on the whole, but the performance of the policy nature, policy field and policy audience dimension needs to be improved. Based on this, the paper puts forward some suggestions: (1) Optimize the cooperation mechanism among tourism policy issuing bodies and coordinate multi-bodies to strengthen cross-departmental cooperation in tourism policy making. (2) Rationally allocate policy tools, give full play to the linkage role of three policy tools to promote the healthy development of China's tourism industry. (3) Coordinate the text effectiveness dimension and constantly improve the poorly performing dimension to optimize the overall tourism policy effectiveness mechanism. This study clarifies the logical evolution and structural system of China's tourism policy since the late 1970s, and provides theoretical references for the future clarification of the focus areas of tourism policy and the construction of a more reasonable and effective tourism policy system. In addition, it provides insights into the high-quality development of tourism industry.