Tourism Agglomeration and Tourism Productivity in China: An Empirical Research Based on Spatial Panel Data Model

This paper adopts the Slacks-based measure (SBM) model to assess the productivity of China's tourism industry from 2005 to 2013, and then discusses the correlation between tourism agglomeration and tourism productivity from a perspective of the theory of New Economic Geography by using spatial panel data model. The results show that there is an unbalanced spatial characteristic of the tourism industry economic growth. The productivity of China's eastern region is the highest, followed by western and central regions. Tourism agglomeration has a positive influence on the productivity of tourism industry, however, the intensity of the influence is affected by knowledge spillover from the perspective of the Endogenous growth theory. To improve the productivity of tourism industry, government needs to accelerate tourism industry agglomeration by guiding development of hotel, travel agency and other tourism enterprises, meanwhile, a establish face to face cooperation mechanism for the knowledge spillover.