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Arid Land Geography ›› 2023, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (10): 1704-1713.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2023.090

• Regional Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Can the digital economy promote the resilience of the tourism economy in the Yellow River Basin?

SHENG Yanchao1(),TAN Zuosi1(),LI Qian1,XU Lingling2   

  1. 1. School of Public Administration and Human Geography, Hunan University of Technology and Business, Changsha 410205, Hunan, China
    2. School of Accounting, Zhengzhou College of Finance and Economics,Zhengzhou 450000, Henan, China
  • Received:2023-03-02 Revised:2023-04-04 Online:2023-10-25 Published:2023-11-10

Abstract:

Digital economy empowers the tourism industry to transform intelligently; as a result, the overall crisis resistance and innovation transformation capacity of the tourism industry are enhanced, providing new opportunities for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. After systematically elaborating the theoretical basis of the impact of digital economy on the resilience of the tourism economy, the impact of the digital economy on the resilience of tourism economy in the Yellow River Basin and its mechanism of action are examined using fixed-effects models and difference-in-difference models based on panel data obtained from 81 prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2008 to 2020. The results revealed that: (1) The development of digital economy can directly promote the resilience of the tourism economy, and the conclusions from the study still hold after a series of robustness and endogeneity tests, including the establishment of the “Big Data Comprehensive Experimental Zone” as a quasi-natural experiment. (2) Digital economy indirectly improves the resilience of the tourism economy in the Yellow River Basin by promoting factor mobility and improving innovation levels. (3) Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect of digital economy on the resilience of the tourism economy in the Yellow River Basin is dependent on the geographical location and degree of tourism development, decreasing in the order of “midstream region>upstream region>downstream region”; digital economy renders a better effect in areas with high degree of tourism development. The results of the study provide a policy basis for the Yellow River Basin to promote the development strategy of “digital + tourism” and strengthen the tourism industry to prevent risks and cope with external shocks.

Key words: digital economy, resilience of tourism economic, feature flow, ability to innovation, Yellow River Basin