Ecological Civilization and High-Quality Development: Do Tourism Industry and Technological Progress Affect Ecological Economy Development?

The tourism industry is considered a smokeless industry or green economy. Under the circumstances of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, it is essential and urgent to explore whether the tourism industry and technological progress can promote ecological economy development. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in mainland China from 2007–2019, this paper, for the first time, incorporates the tourism industry, technological progress, and ecological economy development into the analytical framework by constructing a PVAR model. In addition, this paper calculates the indicator weights of each variable using the entropy weighting method. This paper utilizes GMM tests, impulse response analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, and variance decomposition to empirically investigate the dynamic impact mechanism of variables interacting with each other. The conclusions are as follows. First, the tourism industry always contributes positively to ecological economy development, while technological progress can facilitate ecological economy development in the long run rather than in the short term. Second, the tourism industry also positively contributes to technological progress. Third, ecological economy development has a “crowding out effect” on the tourism industry. Fourth, the tourism industry in developed eastern regions has a more powerful impact on ecological economy development than in underdeveloped middle and western regions. Based on the empirical results, we provide practical implications: first, the assessment system of the regional economy should include ecological development indicators; second, the tourism industry should accelerate the use of clean energy and the transformation of green technological innovation.