Digital Economy and Tourism Green Development Efficiency: Evidence from China

This study examines whether and under what conditions the digital economy (DGE) improves the green development efficiency of China’s tourism industry. Drawing on panel data for 30 Chinese provinces from 2012 to 2023, we develop a multidimensional index of the DGE that captures digital infrastructure, digital industrialization, and industrial digitalization. To evaluate tourism green development efficiency, we employ a non-radial, non-angular super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model that incorporates both desirable outputs and undesirable environmental externalities. From a theoretical perspective, we extend the Cobb–Douglas production framework by embedding DGE-induced technological progress, showing that digitalization can improve green efficiency through two complementary pathways: it expands expected output while reducing carbon intensity. Empirically, the baseline two-way fixed-effects results show that DGE significantly promotes tourism green development efficiency (β = 0.0153, p < 0.05), and this result remains robust in instrumental-variable (IV) estimation (β = 0.0383, p < 0.05). We further show that this relationship is conditioned by three important external conditions. First, environmental regulation strengthens the enabling effect of digitalization, consistent with a compliance-induced Porter effect. Second, tourism industry agglomeration enhances the benefits of digital transformation by deepening knowledge spillovers and network complementarities. Third, green finance relaxes financing constraints and creates more favorable conditions for digital investment. By integrating a formal theoretical model with panel-data evidence, this study provides a unified explanation of both the mechanism and the boundary conditions through which the DGE promotes tourism green development efficiency. Overall, the findings suggest that the DGE is an important driver of sustainable tourism development and offer useful policy implications for coordinated digital and green transformation.