The effect of cultural system reform on tourism development: Evidence from China

Culture is the cornerstone of regional tourism development, yet the impact of culture is difficult to quantify. This paper utilized a quasi-natural experiment to characterize the impact of culture on tourism. Based on the 295 cities data from 2000 to 2020, we adopted the Staggered Differences-in-Differences strategy to examine whether the Cultural System Reform (CSR) policy could stimulate tourism development. As a crucial component of the institutional reform framework in China, CSR is a pivotal policy aimed at exploring cultural productivity and fostering the development of culture in accordance with societal demands. The results show that the policy significantly increased the total tourism arrivals and the total tourism revenue. Mechanism analysis shows that the CSR policy boosted tourism development by improving service quality, public cultural infrastructure construction, and media integration development. Geographical conditions, tourism resource endowment, and transportation infrastructure also have an impact on the effectiveness of policy implementation.